His preparations completed, the Moslem general, seconded by the enthusiasm of his splendid army, and confident of success, prepared at once for an assault. The ladders were planted, and despite the terrors of Greek fire, and the valor of the Byzantine garrison which behaved with unusual spirit, the city was taken. But, in the mean time, news of the danger of the colony had reached the Bosphorus; the Court was aroused from its lethargy; a powerful fleet was equipped; and the Moslems had scarcely rested from. their efforts before the arrival of this new enemy compelled them to retreat. A few months later, however, reinforcements having been received by Hassan, Carthage was again stormed; a decisive victory was gained by the Moslems over the Greeks, who imprudently risked an engagement in the open field; the city was plundered and burnt; and the jurisdiction over its territory passed away forever from the hands of the corrupt and pusillanimous sovereigns of the Eastern Empire. But the destruction of the capital, a political measure to secure supremacy, while producing a decisive moral effect upon the remaining colonies of the Greeks, was far from intimidating the Berbers, whose omnipresent squadrons remained the masters of all the region situated beyond the fortified towers of the frontier. A female impostor of princely lineage--whose name, Dhabba’, has been abandoned by subsequent chroniclers for the popular appellation Kahina, or Sorceress--had, by her mysterious arts, obtained unbounded influence over her countrymen; and, inspiring them with a certain degree of patriotism, had appeased their feuds and united the roving tribes of the Atlas in an extensive and powerful confederacy. Animated by her teachings and allured by her promise of booty, the Berbers pressed upon the forces of Hassan until the latter, after great losses, were finally expelled, and repairing to Barca, remained there in a state of inglorious inactivity for nearly five years. It is related that as soon as the enemy had passed the borders, the sorceress-queen ordered the fertile region of the coast, which, in the days of its prosperity, had furnished the supplies of the Empire, and whose beauty had been celebrated by every traveller, to be utterly desolated, as a precaution against future invasion. The fields were laid waste, the towns depopulated, the harvests burnt, the orchards cut down, the plantations transformed into a wilderness. This irrational act of violence was not viewed with complacency by the land-holders and other civilized inhabitants of the country, and, from time to time, emissaries were despatched to the Arab Viceroy of Africa, promising him in return for his interference the assistance and future allegiance of the persecuted colonists. At length the order to advance arrived from Damascus, and Hassan, with the most numerous army that had ever invaded Africa, encountered the priestess at the head of her adherents near Mount Auras.