Meantime the strong southerly wind has brought the four ships abreast of the city. Their short but sturdy hulls with high bows and loftier poops are driven steadily through the water by the big swelling mainsails of the period. As they approach the Straits, when they are well in view from the Sphendone, they are met by the Turkish admiral who from the poop of his trireme commands them peremptorily to lower their sails. On their refusal he gives orders for attack. The leading boats pull for the ships, but both the advantages of wind and a considerable sea were with the larger vessels, while their greater height from the water made boarding under the circumstances extremely difficult. The Italians with axes and boathooks make short work of any who attempt it. The skirmish became a running fight in which the attackers shot their arrows and fire-bearing darts and threw their lances with little effect. [Sidenote: Wind drops.] The south wind continuing to blow, the ships held on their course until they entered the Bosporus and came near Seraglio Point. Then, all of a sudden, the wind fell,[290] and in a few minutes the sails flap idly under the very walls of the Acropolis.[291] The sudden fall of the wind had shifted the advantage of the position from the ships to the Turkish fleet. Then, indeed, says Pusculus, the real fight commenced. The Turkish admiral had apparently now complete justification for the belief that he would have an easy capture. The four ships were powerless to move, while Baltoglu could choose his own mode of attack by his hundred and fifty fighting vessels. When, while the ships were under the walls of the Acropolis, the wind fell, they would nevertheless drift over towards the Galata shore of the Bosporus by the current which after a south wind invariably sets in that direction. Probably they would be influenced also by the last puffs which usually follow the sudden dropping of the south wind near Constantinople. The remainder of the combat is therefore to be fought at the mouth of the Golden Horn, between Seraglio Point and the shore east of Galata near Tophana, and just outside the walls of that city. Thousands of spectators had gathered to witness this second portion of the fight. The walls at Seraglio Point were crowded with soldiers and citizens fearing for the result but unable to render assistance. Nor could any aid be given by the crews of the ships of the imperial fleet which were near at hand on guard at the boom, though of course on the harbour side. At one time, says Phrantzes, the ships were within a stone’s-throw of the land. On the opposite shore of the Golden Horn outside the walls of Galata, to which attackers and attacked were slowly drifting as they fought, the sultan and his suite watched the fight with interest not less keen than that of the Christians on the walls of Constantinople, but with the same confidence of success as was felt by the admiral. [Sidenote: Attack at mouth of Golden Horn.]