As they neared the tower at the angle of the wall they found that the ramparts there had been entirely deserted by the Turks.
"This is a rum way of defending a town," Wilkinson remarked. "If this is the way the Turks are going to behave, the sooner we are all on board ship the better."
The French fire was brisk, the thuds of the balls, as they struck the tower, occurring five or six times a minute. The three officers entered the tower. Two or three holes appeared in the wall of the floor by which they entered it.
"The masonry must be very rotten," Beatty said, "or they would not have knocked holes in it as soon as this."
They descended the stairs into the story below, and uttered a simultaneous exclamation of alarm. A yawning hole some eight feet wide appeared.
"This is serious, Wilkinson. Let us take a look down below."
"Look out!" Wilkinson shouted as a ball passed just over their heads and struck the wall behind them. "Stand back here a moment."
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "there is a breach down to the bottom of the tower level with the lower storey ground, and a heap of rubbish at the foot outside. I don't think it is high enough yet for anyone to get up to the opening, but it will soon be practicable if it is not now. Look! look! I can see a large body of French among the trees there. They are about to advance to storm the breach. Run, Blagrove, and wake up the Turks. We will go back and fetch up the marines and blue-jackets. The enemy may be in the place in five minutes."
Leaving the tower, Edgar ran along the wall.
"Take your men to the tower at once!" he shouted to the first Turkish officer he saw. "The French are crossing the ditch."
Instead, however, of obeying him the officer and his men ran to one of the steps leading up to the wall, and commenced shouting, "The French are in the town!"
Edgar saw that he had told the news too suddenly, and that it was hopeless for him to try to stop the flood, therefore ran along the wall until he reached the stairs leading down to the open space in front of Djezzar's palace. As he had been frequently there before, he made his way straight to the apartments where Djezzar transacted business.
"The French have breached the tower, pasha," he said, "and their storming party was about to cross the ditch when I came away. There are no troops there to defend the breach, and those on the wall are flying. Unless you yourself go out and rally the men to the defence the town is lost."