The failure of so vast a scheme of invasion produced in the minds of the Viennese a reasonable sense of security against any reappearance of the horse-tails before their walls. It might be long, indeed, before the aggressive power of the Porte should be restrained within the limits of a well-defined frontier, and awed into quiescence by experience of its inability to cope with Christian Europe. The Turk was still in possession of fortresses, such as Neuhaüsel, within a few hours’ march of the capital, but another investment of Vienna was an event not within the scope of reasonable calculation. It was therefore now determined to remove from public gaze a conspicuous and not very creditable memorial of the former liability of the city to the insult which it had twice experienced: namely, the crescent, which, since the siege of 1529, had surmounted the spire of the Christian Temple of St. Stephen. It was generally held to have been placed there on an understanding with Soliman, that, like the black flag, which in modern warfare frequently protects an hospital, it should exempt the building beneath from the fire of an attack. Some writers, jealous of their country’s honour, have indeed disputed this version of its origin. Be this as it may, the talisman had lost its virtue, for the malignity of Kara Mustapha had selected the cathedral as a principal object for his batteries, though the Turkish gunners had only succeeded in two or three instances in disturbing the celebration of its services, and the return of killed and wounded in its congregations exhibited only one old woman whose leg had been carried off by a shell. At the suggestion, according to some authors, of Sobieski, but more probably of Kollonitsch, the crescent was now removed to the arsenal, where it is still preserved, and replaced in the first instance by an iron cross, which being fixed was shortly carried away by a storm. In 1587, a rotatory double eagle of brass was placed on the pinnacle, which it still adorns. CHAPTER XVIII. Though the main interest of the drama ceases with the liberation of the city, the fate of a principal actor, Kara Mustapha, remains to be noticed; and some further events of the campaign will be found neither deficient in historical importance nor destitute of instruction to the soldier.