The rage of Buonaparte at these repeated discomfitures may be imagined. The whole evil was ascribed, and justly, to the presence of Sir Sydney Smith; and he spoke of that chivalrous person ever after with the venom of a personal hatred. Sir Sydney, in requital of Buonaparte's proclamation--inviting (as was his usual fashion) the subjects of the Pacha to avoid his yoke, and ally themselves with the invaders--put forth a counter address to the Druses and other Christian inhabitants of Syria, invoking their assistance in the name of their religion, against the blasphemous general of a nation which had renounced Christianity. Napoleon upon this said that Sir Sydney was a madman; and if his story be true, Sir Sydney challenged him to single combat; to which he made answer, that he would not come forth to a duel unless the English could fetch Marlborough from his grave, but that, in the meantime, any one of his grenadiers would willingly give the challenger such satisfaction as he was entitled to demand. Whatever inaccuracy there may be in some of these circumstances, there is no doubt of the fact that Buonaparte and the brave commodore strove together at Acre, under the highest influence of personal resentment, as well as martial skill and determination. [_21st May._] The siege had now lasted sixty days. Once more Napoleon commanded an assault, and his officers and soldiery once more obeyed him with devoted and fruitless gallantry. The loss his army had by this time undergone was very great. Caffarelli and many other officers of the highest importance were no more. The plague had some time before this appeared in the camp; every day the ranks of his legions were thinned by this pestilence, as well as by the weapons of the defenders of Acre. The hearts of all men were quickly sinking. The Turkish fleet was at hand to reinforce Djezzar; and upon the utter failure of the attack of the 21st of May, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and began his retreat upon Jaffa. The plague now raged in the army. The very name of this horrible scourge shook the nerves of the Europeans; its symptoms filled them with indescribable horror. The sick despaired utterly; the healthy trembled to minister to them in their misery. Napoleon went through the hospitals, and at once breathed hope into the sufferers, and rebuked the cowardice of their attendants, by squeezing and relieving with his own hand the foul ulcers which no one had dared to touch. Pity that this act of true heroism must ever be recorded on the same page that tells the story of the sand-hills! The name of Jaffa was already sufficiently stained; but fame speedily represented Napoleon as having now made it the scene of another atrocity, not less shocking than that of the massacre of the Turkish prisoners.