At last, the leaders perceived the existence of a circumstance, their neglect of which, in the very first instance, showed how much the art of warfare was then in its infancy. One evening, after a fierce assault, the soldiers stationed near the water, who, in common with the rest of the host, usually rested from the labours of the siege during the night, suddenly perceived boats upon the lake Ascanius, and it immediately became evident that the Turks received every kind of supply by this easy means of communication. As soon as this was discovered, various vessels were brought from Constantinople, and being drawn to the lake over a narrow neck of land which separated it from the sea, were filled with imperial archers;[233] and the blockade of the town was thus rendered absolute. This was executed during the night, and all hope abandoned the Turks from the next morning, when they beheld that which had proved their great resource suddenly cut off. The crusaders now hoped to force the city to surrender at discretion; and their expectations of such an event were much raised by the fact of the sultauness, the wife of Soliman, who had hitherto courageously undergone all the miseries and dangers of a siege, being taken in endeavouring to make her escape by the lake.[234] By this time the besieged had determined to surrender; but Alexius had taken care to send with the army of the Cross an officer on whose art and fidelity he could depend, to secure for the imperial crown a city which he would probably have rather seen still under the dominion of the Turks, than in the hands of the Latins. This man's name was Taticius, or, according to the crusaders' corruption, Tatin.[235] His face was dreadfully mutilated, and his mind seems to have been as horrible as his countenance. What communication he kept up within the town it is difficult to discover; and how this communication was concealed from the Latins is hardly known, but probably it took place, as Mills conjectures, by means of the lake and the Greek vessels which now covered it. Certain it is, that the Turks entered into a private treaty with the emissary of Alexius, who granted them the most advantageous terms, securing to them not only life,[236] but immunity and protection.