But the time came at last when Sinan and his gallant Turks could hold the place no longer; the walls were breached in six or seven places, and Spaniards, Germans, and Italians made a simultaneous attack. Sinan fighting to the last, evacuated the fortress, and retired actually through the water across a shallow part of the bay to the city, with the remnant of his once magnificent force; and now Barbarossa knew that the end was come, and that Tunis must pass from his hands to those of the Christian Emperor. It was not only the fall of the Goletta that troubled him, but the equally important fact that by this the fleet of the enemy was enabled to lay hands upon his own fleet, consisting of eighty-seven galleys and galliots, together with his arsenal, and no less than three hundred cannon, mostly brass guns of excellent construction, mounted on the walls and planted on the ramparts. The surprising amount of this artillery gives a measure of the strength of the fortress and the efforts it must have cost the besiegers with such a man as Sinan in command. That the end was near was known to all, and not the least of their embarrassments was the presence within the city walls of some twenty thousand Christian captives. The city was large, the defences were spread out over a great area, it was abundantly evident that it could not be held, and, in consequence, Barbarossa summoned his principal officers and communicated to them his decision. “We will not remain here to be slain like rats in a trap by the accursed of God by whom we are attacked. No, rather will we perish, sword in hand, as our fathers have done before us; but first there is a danger against which we have to guard. Within these walls are twenty thousand prisoners who will rise against us at the first opportunity; let us, then, first put them to death, and then we will leave this place and show our enemies how the true Moslems can die.”