♦He attacks the entrenchments.♦ At length the day broke, and Sobieski observed the enemy’s lines much thinner than before. Many of the Turks, exhausted by the unwonted cold, had sought their tents, not dreaming for one moment that the Poles would dare to attack them in daylight. “This is the moment that I waited for,” cried Sobieski to his staff, and ordered at once a general assault. After galloping down the lines with a few encouraging words, he alighted from his horse, and led the infantry and his own dismounted dragoons against the entrenchments. The Turks, whose attention was distracted by a false attack on another side, left a weak point in his front, and Sobieski, though somewhat bulky, was the first to scale the parapet. He was splendidly supported by his dragoons; and the battle now raged in the midst of the tents. The infantry might possibly have been surrounded, had not Jablonowski, Palatine of Russia, dashed up a steep place with the best of the cavalry, and rushed to the rescue. ♦Rout of the Turks,♦ Sobieski was supplied with a horse, and the Turks now began to give way on all sides. Soliman Pacha, at the head of the janissaries, tried to retreat in good order to the plain; but he was charged by the Lithuanians in front and by the Poles in the rear, and his fine troops were cut to pieces. He is said to have himself fallen by the hand of Sobieski, who despoiled him of his jewelled scimitar.[48] The Turks fled in confused masses to the bridge leading to the castle; but Sobieski had provided against this by sending his brother-in-law, Radziwill, with a large detachment to seize it. The only retreat now left them was the steep rock on the river-side, from which thousands precipitated themselves into the stream; ♦And complete victory of the Poles.♦ but the Polish cavalry dashed in after them, and completed their destruction. The carnage lasted more than three hours, during which half the Turkish force was slain, and a large number taken prisoners. A remnant of the original force succeeded in escaping to Kaminiec, among whom was the Seraskier Hussein.[49] ♦Question of the prisoners.♦ It is difficult to credit the statement of some historians, none of whom are contemporaries, that Sobieski put all the prisoners to the sword.[50] Such an act would have been opposed alike to his natural disposition and to his defensive policy. Plain facts are against it; for some days later the commander at Kaminiec, delighted at the generous terms which he granted to the garrison of the castle (November 13th,), released fifty prisoners without ransom. Had such an enormity been committed, it must certainly have reached his ears, and would have met with a prompt revenge.