A pack of wolves Penelope had called them--aye, and the wolves were hungry. Six months' waiting in inaction, all trust in their captains gone, and the treacherous marketing of the captains gone likewise! The soldiers knew that for days past promises of protection had flowed in on the besieged, and signed papers promising to pay king's ransoms had come out; but there was little chance now of these ransoms going where they were promised. The soldiers would have a hand in that promised gold, it was their hour now; the captains might flourish their infamous paper bargains; let them, if they could, protect their pashas, and let them collect their rewards from those who spoiled the palaces. There was such order in the ranks as the water of a river in flood observes when it has broken its banks; among the besieged such resistance as sticks and straws show when the torrent catches them. Close on the heels of the regular troops fighting to gain an entrance came the mob of peasants, the scavengers of the siege, who had come for the pickings. The troops thrust them back till they had themselves got in; some were ground against the walls, some thrown under foot in the narrow gateways and trodden by the heels of the advancing columns. Once inside, each man went where he willed or where the stream of men bore him, most of them making for the large houses stood round the square, where the richest booty was expected. Close above stood the citadel, with empty-mouthed guns pointing this way and that, but silent, and if those months had been roaring with an iron death none would have regarded. Petrobey, who had joined the Mainats, wondered at this; the Turks, he thought, might at least sell their lives as dear as they could, but the reason was not known till three days later, when the citadel fell. All thoughts of discipline or order were out of the question; he was jostled along with the others; he was one among many, and all were equal, and each was a wild animal.