Sultàn Muhammed extended his conquests to Servia, and prepared to devour Hungary, launching one hundred and fifty thousand infidels against Belgrade. Fra Jan Capistran’s eloquence and pious zeal roused the Magyars to consciousness of the imminent peril; Cardinal Bernardino Caravajal, the ablegate, inspired their patriotism with his wisdom and devotion; and Jan Hunniades, the Vaivod of Hungary, resolved to resist invasion. Confidence in princes was, as always, vain. The terror-stricken King Wladislaw fled with his court and his guardian, Count de Cilly, from Buda to Venice; and along the valley of the Danube poured the locust-swarms of Infidels to invest Belgrade. The Vaivod Jan Hunniades raised an army at his own expense; whence came the means, the men, is still unknown, for most important documents connected with the siege of Belgrade yet attend discovery: but there was a Magyar army, commanded by Jan Hunniades, ministered to by Fra Jan Capistran, which advanced to relieve Belgrade; and the ablegate, Fra Bernardino Caravajal, remained behind at Buda, by the Vaivod’s request, to collect and forward reinforcements. On the fourteenth day of siege the Magyars collided with the Infidels. Already the walls of Belgrade sorely were shaken: but the arrival of the Vaivod, breaking the Muslim line and winning a complete victory, put courage into the hearts of the beleaguered. In three months time, once more the Muslim concentrated, and on the twenty-first of July the city suffered a second storm. Jan Hunniades and Fra Jan Capistran, from one of the towers, directed the defence. At a crisis in the fray, the heroic friar rushed, like a second Joshua, through the Christian host, waving the crucifix and a banner with the sacred monogram invented by San Bernardino of Siena. Behind him came the Vaivod with aid. Through breaches in the walls many times the Infidels streamed in, and always the stream was dammed and driven back. Fra Jan Capistran himself led a squadron of Magyar huszars[16] who put to flight the fierce janissaries of Islam. And, at last, the day was won; and the air resounded with the Most Holy Name shouted by victorious Crusaders, while Sultàn Muhammed, wounded, was retreating in confusion with the remnant of his conquered army. Belgrade was relieved. When the news reached Rome, the Holiness of the Pope was lying sick, heart-worn, heart-sore, gazing from His window at the galleys building in shipwrights’ yards on Ripa Grande. The relief of a beleaguered city, even as late as the last century when decorous indifference was the fashionable pose, used to cause deliriously human demonstrations. Men were quite as human in the fifteenth as in the nineteenth century, less compound, and much more simple. Belgrade was relieved, and there was joy in Christendom. * * * * *