cupidity and fanaticism was too strong to be successfully withstood; the assailants poured into the breach, and their weight and impetuosity overwhelmed the garrison, driving it back into the city. The conflict raged with unremitting fury in the winding streets. The women on the housetops cast down missiles of every description upon the heads of the struggling Christians. From the minaret of every mosque came the stentorian voice of the muezzin, encouraging the Moslems to renewed action and invoking the curse of Allah upon the infidel. The narrow thoroughfares and the houses solidly constructed of stone retarded the progress of the assailants. The Moors fought with desperation for their homes and their liberty; but animated by the example of their sovereign and urged on by the presence and the appeals of the ecclesiastics, who, like their antagonists, the faquis and the muezzins, took a prominent part in the battle, the Aragonese ultimately prevailed. Fifty thousand persons perished; thirty thousand were sold as slaves, and a great number found a temporary asylum in the mountains among the hospitable and sympathetic peasantry. As the capital was the centre of a flourishing maritime trade, had been enriched with the spoils of innumerable piratical excursions, and had become the residence of many wealthy refugees from Africa, the victors obtained a magnificent booty. So great was it, indeed, that the horrors of pillage continued without cessation for eight consecutive days. Their avarice satiated, the first duty imposed upon the Christians was the purification of the city. The immense number of dead bodies, putrefying under a tropical sun, made this an unwelcome and onerous task; but the labors of the workmen were cheered and accelerated by the pious assurance of the clergy that a thousand days of pardon would be accorded them for the head of every misbeliever. The streets were cleared of the repulsive encumbrances which offended the senses and impeded traffic; the corpses of the victims of war and brutality were consumed by fire outside the walls; and the soldiers proceeded to indemnify themselves for past privations by indulgence in every kind of debauchery.