that of the last Christian service in St. Sophia is surely among the most tragic.[395] The solemn ceremony concluded, all went to take up their respective stations. The Greeks, says Leonard, who is by no means a witness partial to them, went to their posts strengthened in their manly resolve to put aside all private interests and acted together for the common safety steadily and cheerfully. [Sidenote: Defenders close gates behind them.] Italians and Greeks returned to their stations at the landward walls for the defence of the Outer Wall and with the Inner Wall behind them. In order to prevent any of their number withdrawing from the fight the gates leading from the city into the Peribolos, where they stood, were closed and locked. They thus voluntarily cut themselves off from all chance of retreat. It was done, says Cambini the Florentine, writing while the siege was within the memory of persons still living, so that in taking from the defenders any means of retreat they should resolve to conquer or die.[396] During the night the defenders, and especially those between the stockade and the Inner Wall, heard the noise of great preparations among the enemy. The emperor rode from Hagia Sophia to the palace of Blachern, which he had occupied during all the time of the siege. Phrantzes, who was in company with him, asks who could remain unmoved while the emperor during his last and short stay in the palace demanded pardon of all there present. ‘If a man had been made of wood or stone he must have wept over the scene.’ Depression is naturally the constant note of all the narratives of those present in the city during May 28. The Venetian closes the day’s entry by recording in a quaint passage that the fasting and rejoicing among the Turkish army went on until midnight, and that then the fires were extinguished, but that these pagans all day and night continued to beseech Mahomet that he would grant them victory and help them to capture this city of Constantinople; ‘while we Christians all day and night prayed God and St. Mary and all the saints in heaven and with many tears devoutly besought them that they would not grant such victory, that the besieged should not become victims of this accursed pagan,’ and thus ‘each side having prayed to its God, we to ours and they to theirs, the Lord Almighty with his mother in heaven decided that they must be avenged in this battle of the morrow for all the sins committed.’ [Sidenote: Emperor’s last inspection of defenders.] Shortly after midnight of the 28th-29th the emperor, accompanied by Phrantzes, left the palace of Blachern on horseback to inspect the various stations and to see that all were on the watch. The walls and towers were occupied; the gates from the city into the Peribolos were safely closed, so that none might enter or leave.[397]