The wrath of Solyman at the wearisomeness of the siege knew no bounds. He had been patiently expecting day after day the reduction of the place, and finally, tired of further delay, gave the order for a general assault on the 29th of August. The superstitious sultan thought this a particularly lucky day, for it was the anniversary of the day on which he had taken Belgrade and of the battle at Mohács. The aged ruler, who now, but rarely showed himself to his soldiers, mounted his favorite charger and appeared amongst the Janissaries, in order to rouse and encourage them. His troops rushed enthusiastically into the fight, for which the artillery and the engineers conducting the siege had made every preparation many days before. But Zrinyi was ready and wide-awake, and drove the assailants back with great slaughter. Aliportug, a Portuguese renegade, who was the enemy’s most distinguished artillery officer and military engineer, and had conducted the siege of Sziget, lost his life during this engagement. The Hungarians, although they too had suffered severe losses, celebrated their triumph with bonfires and feasting. They now fondly hoped that their heroic resistance would at last induce the royal troops to come to the relief of Sziget, and to attack the exhausted troops of the sultan. Some negotiations to that effect had been carried on, but the result was as usual; the German commanders allowed the scanty garrison to perish. The besiegers, after their last repulse, passed an entire week without renewing the attack. They employed this pause to lay unobserved a powerful mine under the walls of the bastion, which was fired by them on the 5th of September. The explosion shattered the walls, the bastion fell down, and a terrible gale carried the flames into the citadel in every direction. All the buildings were soon on fire, and the Turks too began a general assault. Hemmed in by the dreadful conflagration and the storming enemy, the Hungarians finally yielded. They retired from the outer fortification, and Zrinyi with his men—who had dwindled down to a few hundred—withdrew into the inner or smaller fort. Further resistance seemed now hopeless, yet Zrinyi did not think of capitulating. The cannon-balls of the enemy set on fire the smaller fort on the 7th of September. Zrinyi, in this extremity, had all his valuables, his thousands of gold and silver, his precious vessels and plate, brought into the public square of the citadel and cast into the flames. He then divested himself of his armor and helmet, donned a dolmány (a short jacket braided in front), and threw over it a dark-blue velvet cloak, placing in each of his pockets a hundred ducats as a reward to the man who should discover his dead body. He wound a costly chain of gold around his neck, in place of his helmet he put on his head a kalpag (a Hungarian fur cap), ornamented with a heron’s feather and diamond rosettes, and, arming himself with a curved sabre