it would have been eternal disgrace to the order either to abandon or surrender: and though the season was winter, Timour, exasperated by the haughty reply of the garrison, at once commenced the siege. In fifteen days he had thrown a mole across the harbour, which deprived the Christians of all succour from without, and brought the Mongol troops close to the seaward parts of the town; the resistance he encountered, however, was worthy of the fame of a city, of which a Persian historian declares, that it had sustained a seven-years’ siege under Bajazet, had never paid tribute to any one, or ever been in the power of any Mussulman prince from the period of its conquest by Biandra. Attacks and sallies were daily interchanged; and whilst both parties displayed prodigies of valour, victory could be claimed by neither. The mines formed by the Tartars were of no effect; for the besieged crushed all who entered them by the enormous stones, or rather rocks, which they dashed from the summits of the walls. At length Timour, impatient of delay, ordered a general storm; an enormous number of wooden towers were erected, in which the besiegers succeeded in approaching the fortifications; and from these they threw themselves on the ramparts, covering their manœuvre by a shower of arrows, the density of which darkened the very air. In vain did the brave defenders struggle to force back the torrent of their enemies; they poured in from every quarter in countless numbers: nevertheless the same Persian writer, Cheresiddin Ali, assures us that the assault lasted from morning to sunset, and that the obstinacy of the defence equalled the ferocity of the attack. “No one,” he says, “had a moment’s repose; the intrepid besieged ceased not to send forth a shower of arrows, Greek fire, and stones, without giving breathing-space for a minute; and all the while there fell an extraordinary storm of rain, as though the universe were about to be swallowed up in a second deluge; yet still, in spite of the horrors of the tempest, Timour continued to give his orders to his generals, and to stimulate the courage of his soldiers.” As soon as the miners had effected a breach, the apertures were filled with naphtha and other combustibles, and these being fired at once, the walls fell all together with a hideous crash; and the Tartars, forcing back the defenders, entered the city, and commenced an indiscriminate slaughter of every living being it contained, sparing neither sex nor age.[8] A very few escaped by throwing themselves into the sea, and swimming to the vessels without the port; but a vast number were drowned. Several vessels had been despatched from Rhodes with succours, but were unable to land their troops: among them, according to Cheresiddin, was the karrack, or great galley of the order: “it was full of armed men,” he says; “but when they approached the city, they saw no longer any vestiges of it,—neither