The great assault was on the 14th September 1282. "You have no need to fight with these boors and burgesses," said Charles to his knights; "you have merely to slaughter them." He undervalued his foe. In vain did his chivalry advance against the town like a moving wall of steel; in vain did his fleet assail the port. Beams and chains, hidden under water, checked and destroyed his shipping; men and horses fell beneath the missiles of the besieged. One of these would have killed Charles, had not two devoted knights saved him. They covered the King with their bodies, and fell crushed and lifeless at his feet. On the side of the Sicilians, Alaimo displayed great military talents and personal courage. He was every where to be seen, animating his men by his example. When the French were finally repulsed with terrible loss, and compelled to raise the siege, Charles tried to corrupt Alaimo by immense offers, and went so far as to send him his signature upon a blank paper. The Sicilian resisted the temptation--rejecting treasures and dignities, to yield, at a later period, to the influence of a treacherous woman. Meanwhile the deputation charged to offer Sicily to the Pope, returned with a refusal. Martin IV. would have nothing to say to them. He would have better served Charles by acceptance. Subsequently he might have restored the island to the King. As it was, he drove the Sicilians into the snares of the aristocratic league that supported Pedro of Arragon. The republican government was unequal to the task it had undertaken, and the Pope's rejection of the protectorate threw them into great perplexity. A meeting was held to debate the course to be adopted; and the Spanish party, schooled by former failure, achieved a decisive triumph. Its leaders remained mute; but an old man, of such obscure condition that his name was not exactly known, harangued the assemblage, recalled the memory of the house of Swabia, reminded his countrymen that Constance was the legitimate heiress to the crown, and proposed to offer it to her husband, the King of Arragon, then at the port of Collo, on the coast of Africa, near Constantina. The words were scarcely spoken, when a thousand voices extolled the wisdom of the speaker, and ambassadors were immediately named from the people of Palermo to the King of Arragon. Don Pedro had lingered at Portofangos, in expectation of such a summons, for more than a month after the insurrection at Palermo; but finding the secret negotiations of John of Procida with the chiefs of the Sicilian aristocracy less immediately successful than he had hoped, he had sailed for the coast of Africa, on pretext of interfering in a quarrel between the King of Constantina and two of his brothers, but in reality to be nearer the stage on which he hoped soon to play an important part. He affected surprise at the arrival of the Sicilian envoys, who threw themselves at his feet, bathed in tears and dressed in deep mourning, and in a