But Samdagu reassured the people; they were to be of good cheer he declared and fear nothing. Meanwhile they must tear down the walls and remove them. They did this work straightway, and when all was cleared, and the whole place was laid open, a massacre began in that woebegone city. Nine days did that terrible slaughter continue, till the sword had finished every one. Mosul was deserted, not a soul now remained there. It was only when the Mongols had moved far away that eight or ten hundred people who had hidden in the hills and in caverns crept out and came back to inhabit the city. The first governor of this spectral and death-stricken Mosul was that Ibn Yunus who had stolen the letter from Salih and betrayed him. Salih was sent to Hulagu for a judgment. The sentence was revolting and hideous. The late Prince of Mosul was deprived of his clothing and wrapped in a sheepskin just stripped from the animal. This skin was fastened firmly round Salih who, exposed to the sun of July in that climate, suffered terribly. The skin was soon covered with a life most repulsive and the all conquering worm now lived with Salih. The Prince had passed a whole month in that horrible sheepskin when death came to him. His son, Alai ud din, a boy of three years, was sent back to Mosul and put to death there. They made the child drunk, tied cords around his middle very tightly in such fashion as to force upward his entrails; they then cut his body across into two pieces and hung one on each bank of the Tigris, on a gibbet. Mohai, son of Zeblak, who with others had opened the gates to Salih, was beheaded. Samdagu after his triumph at Mosul marched on to Jeziret to which he laid siege all the following winter and spring and a part of the summer of 1263. This place was saved from destruction by the bishop, Hanan Yeshua (Grace of Jesus), a Nestorian, who through his knowledge of alchemy was a favorite of Hulagu, to whom he went straightway and obtained a yarlyk, or decree securing their lives to the people. The gates were thrown open to Samdagu, who had the walls leveled at once. Gulbeg, an officer of the Jeziret prince, was made governor, but Samdagu on learning soon after that Gulbeg had given the late prince’s messenger gold which that prince himself had secreted, put Gulbeg to death promptly.