Mahomet witnessed, from the opposite side of the foss, the demoralisation caused by the departure of Justiniani. He noted that the stockade and broken walls had fewer defenders, that many of them were secretly slipping away, and that those who remained were fighting less vigorously. He saw that the opportune moment for him had come and, calling out to his men, ‘We have the city: it is ours already; the wall is undefended,’ urged his Janissaries to fear nothing, but follow him, and the city would be captured.[431] At his bidding and under his lead, the Janissaries hastened once more to rush the stockade and to climb upon the _débris_ of the wall destroyed by the gun.[432] The sultan had promised great rewards to the first who should gain a position on the wall. A stalwart Janissary named Hassan gained this honour. A man of gigantic stature, he was able, while holding his shield in his left hand, to fight his way to the top of the broken wall, and was followed by some thirty others. The Greeks resisted their entry and killed eighteen. But Hassan maintained his position long enough to enable some of his followers to climb up and get over the wall. A fierce skirmish took place, and many were killed on both sides. Hassan himself was wounded by a stone, slipped and fell, fought bravely on his knees, but was overpowered and killed.[433] But the discrepancy in numbers was too great. Once a few were able to maintain their position on the wall, the Turks mounted and got over to the inner side of the stockade in crowds. The remnant of the defending army stood their ground for a while, but the invaders drove a number of them back and into the deep ditch which had been dug between the great wall and the stockade and out of which it was difficult to escape.[434] Many were thus killed within the Peribolos, of which for the first time the Turks were now the masters. Some of the invaders climbed the great wall behind the defenders to hurl down stones on them, and a fierce fight went on along the length of the stockade in the Lycus valley, and possibly indeed along the whole length of the walls in the Mesoteichion. Suddenly, in this the supreme moment of the struggle, shouts were heard both within and without the walls and from the direction of the harbour, shouts which were taken up by the Greeks, Ἑάλω ἡ πόλις: ‘the city is taken; the Turkish flags are flying on the towers.’ We have already seen what had happened to cause this cry to be raised. The detachment of Turks who had gained entrance through the Kerkoporta had captured some of the lofty towers between it and the Adrianople Gate, and had there raised the Turkish standards.