A despatch from Starhemberg, dated August 18, came safely to the hands of Lorraine. The commandant wrote boldly, perhaps with an eye to the probability of his intelligence reaching the Turkish and not the Imperial general. "I must in the first place, tell your Highness that we have up to this moment disputed the works with the enemy, foot by foot, and that they have not gained an inch of ground without paying for it dearly. Every time that, sword in hand, they have attempted a lodgment, they have been vigorously repulsed by our men, with such loss that they no longer dare to put their heads out of their holes." Nevertheless, he was providing for the worst. "I have caused a new work, well ditched, to be made in the middle of the Burg ravelin; the Löwel and Burg bastions are also defended by a second line; and I am even now beginning another work behind these same bastions. I write this that your Highness may know that we are forgetting nothing, that we are wide awake, and taking all imaginable precautions. As in duty bound I assure your Highness, that to show myself worthy of the confidence which your Highness, and more especially his Majesty my master, repose in my small services, I shall never yield the place but with the last drop of my blood." This despatch was safely carried to Lorraine by Kolschitzki, a Pole. Many other letters had miscarried, for few messengers penetrated, at the risk of life, between the city and the slowly mustering forces of Lorraine. Some swam the arms of the Danube. The most skilful, however, was this Kolschitzki, who relied upon his knowledge of the Turkish tongue and manners, and in Turkish dress penetrated the besieging lines, much as a countryman of our own relied on similar knowledge in a scarcely less memorable siege. The name of Kolschitzki of Vienna may be named side by side with that of "Lucknow" Kavanagh, though the Pole not only passed out through the besiegers, but succeeded in returning again in a like manner into the city with despatches, to sustain the courage of the defenders. From his stone chair, high up in the fretted spire of St. Stephen's, the watchman saw the rockets which rose as signals from the Christian outposts north of the Danube. But from the southern bank must the march be made for the deliverance of the city; and was it possible that Lorraine, or even Sobieski, could carry a force across the river in the face of such an army?