At length the army reached the great plain in which Bokhara was situated, and encamped before the town. Bokhara was very large and very populous, as may well be supposed from its outer wall of thirty miles in circuit, and Genghis Khan did not expect to make himself master of it without considerable difficulty and delay. He was, however, very intent on besieging and taking it, not only on account of the general wealth and importance of the place, but also because he supposed that the sultan himself was at this time within the walls. He had heard that the sultan had retreated there with his flying squadron, taking with him all his treasure.

This was, however, a mistake. The sultan was not there. He had gone there, it is true, at first, and had taken with him the most valuable of his treasures, but before Genghis Khan arrived he had secretly withdrawn to Samarcand, thinking that he might be safer there.

In truth, the sultan was beginning to be very much disheartened and discouraged. Among other things which occurred to disturb his mind, certain letters were found and brought to him, as if they had been intercepted, which letters gave accounts of a conspiracy among his officers to desert him and go over to the side of Genghis Khan. These letters were not signed, and the sultan could not discover who had written them, but the pretended conspiracy which they revealed filled his soul with anxiety and distress.

It was only a pretended conspiracy after all, for the letters were written by a man in Genghis Khan's camp, and with Genghis Khan's permission or connivance. This man was a Mohammedan, and had been in the sultan's service; but the sultan had put to death his father and his brothers on account of some alleged offense, and he had become so incensed at the act that he had deserted to Genghis Khan, and now he was determined to do his former sovereign all the mischief in his power. His intimate knowledge of persons and things connected with the sultan's court and army enabled him to write these letters in such a way as to deceive the sultan completely.

It was past midsummer when the army of Genghis Khan laid siege to Bokhara, and it was not until the spring of the following year that they succeeded in carrying the outer wall, so strongly was the city fortified and so well was it defended. After having forced the outer wall, the Monguls destroyed the suburbs of the town, devastated the cultivated gardens and grounds, and pillaged the villas. They then took up their position around the inner wall, and commenced the siege of the city itself in due form.

The sultan had left three of his greatest generals in command of the town. These men determined not to wait the operations of Genghis Khan in attacking the walls, but to make a sudden sally from the gates, with the whole force that could be spared, and attack the besiegers in their intrenchments. They made this sally in the night, at a time when the Monguls were least expecting it. They were, however, wholly unsuccessful. They were driven back into the city with great loss. The generals, it seems, had determined to risk all on this desperate attempt, and, in case it failed, at once to abandon the city to its fate. Accordingly, when driven into the city through the gates on one side, they marched directly through it and passed out through the gates on the other side, hoping to save themselves and the garrison by this retreat, with a view of ultimately rejoining the sultan. They, however, went first in a southerly direction from the city toward the River Amoor. The generals took their families and those of the principal officers of the garrison with them.

The night was dark, and they succeeded in leaving the city without being observed. In the morning, however, all was discovered, and Genghis Khan sent off a strong detachment of well-mounted troops in pursuit. These troops, after about a day's chase, overtook the flying garrison near the river. There was no escape for the poor fugitives, and the merciless Monguls destroyed them almost every one by riding over them, trampling them down with their horses' hoofs, and cutting them to pieces with their sabres.

In the mean time, while this detachment had been pursuing the garrison, Genghis Khan, knowing that there were no longer any troops within the city to defend it, and that every thing there was in utter confusion, determined on a grand final assault; but, while his men were getting the engines ready to batter down the walls, a procession, consisting of all the magistrates and clergy, and a great mass of the principal citizens, came forth from one of the gates, bearing with them the keys of the city. These keys they offered to Genghis Khan in token of surrender, and begged him to spare their lives.

The emperor received the keys, and said to the citizens that he would spare their lives on condition that, if there were any of the sultan's soldiers concealed in the city, they would give them up, and that they would also seize and deliver to him any of the citizens that were suspected of being in the sultan's interest. This they took a solemn oath that they would do.

The soldiers, however—that is, those that remained in the town—were not delivered up. Most of them retired to the castle, which was a sort of citadel, and put themselves under the command of the governor of the castle, who, being a very energetic and resolute man, declared that he never would surrender.

There were a great many of the young men of the town, sons of the leading citizens, who also retired to the castle, determined not to yield to the conqueror.

Genghis Khan, having thus obtained the keys of the city itself, caused the gates to be opened, and his troops marched in and took possession. He had promised the citizens that his soldiers should spare the lives of the people and should not pillage the houses on condition that the magistrates delivered up peaceably the public magazines of grain and other food to supply his army; also that all the people who had buried or otherwise concealed gold and silver, or other treasures, should bring them forth again and give them up, or else make known where they were concealed. This the people promised that they would do.

After having entered the town, Genghis Khan was riding about the streets on horseback at the head of his troop of guards when he came to a large and very beautiful edifice. The doors were wide, and he drove his horse directly in. His troops, and the other soldiers who were there, followed him in. There were also with him some of the magistrates of the town, who were accompanying him in his progress about the city.

After the whole party had entered the edifice, Genghis Khan looked around, and then asked them, in a jeering manner, if that was the sultan's palace.

"No," said they, "it is the house of God."

The building was a mosque.

On hearing this, Genghis Khan alighted from his horse, and, giving the bridle to one of the principal magistrates to hold, he went up, in a very irreverent manner, to a sacred place where the priests were accustomed to sit. He seized the copy of the Koran which he found there, and threw it down under the feet of the horses. After amusing himself for a time in desecrating the temple by these and other similar performances, he caused his soldiers to bring in their provisions, and allowed them to eat and drink in the temple, in a riotous manner, without any regard to the sacredness of the place, or to the feelings of the people of the town which he outraged by this conduct.

A few days after this Genghis Khan assembled all the magistrates and principal citizens of the town, and made a speech to them from an elevated stand or pulpit which was erected for the purpose. He began his speech by praising God, and claiming to be an object of his special favor, in proof of which he recounted the victories which he had obtained, as he said, through the Divine aid. He then went on to denounce the perfidious conduct of the sultan toward him in making a solemn treaty of peace with him and then treacherously murdering his merchants and embassadors. He said that the sultan was a detestable tyrant, and that God had commissioned him to rid the earth of all such monsters. He said, in conclusion, that he would protect their lives, and would not allow his soldiers to take away their household goods, provided they surrendered to him fairly and honestly all their money and other treasures; and if any of them refused to do this, or to tell where their treasures were hid, he would put them to the torture, and compel them to tell.

The wretched inhabitants of the town, feeling that they were entirely at the mercy of the terrible hordes that were in possession of the city, did not attempt to conceal any thing. They brought forward their hidden treasures, and even offered their household goods to the conqueror if he was disposed to take them. They were only anxious to save, if possible, their dwellings and their lives. Genghis Khan appeared at first to be pleased with the submissive spirit which they manifested, but at last, under pretense that he heard of some soldiers being concealed somewhere, and perhaps irritated at the citadel's holding out so long against him, he ordered the town to be set on fire. The buildings were almost all of wood, and the fire raged among them with great fury. Multitudes of the inhabitants perished in the flames, and great numbers died miserably afterward from want and exposure. The citadel immediately afterward surrendered, and it would seem that Genghis Khan began to feel satisfied with the amount of misery which he had caused, for it is said that he spared the lives of the governor and of the soldiers, although we might have expected that he would have massacred them all.

The citadel was, however, demolished, and thus the town itself, and all that pertained to it, became a mass of smoking ruins. The property pillaged from the inhabitants was divided among the Mongul troops, while the people themselves went away, to roam as vagabonds and beggars over the surrounding country, and to die of want and despair.

What difference is there between such a conqueror as this and the captain of a band of pirates or of robbers, except in the immense magnitude of the scale on which he perpetrates his crimes?

The satisfaction which Genghis Khan felt at the capture of Bokhara was greatly increased by the intelligence which he received soon afterward from the two princes whom he had sent to lay siege to Otrar, informing him that that city had fallen into their hands, and that the governor of it, the officer who had so treacherously put to death the embassadors and the merchants, had been taken and slain. The name of this governor was Gayer Khan. The sultan, knowing that Genghis Khan would doubtless make this city one of his first objects of attack, left the governor a force of fifty thousand men to defend it. He afterward sent him an additional force of ten thousand men, under the command of a general named Kariakas.

With these soldiers the governor shut himself up in the city. He knew very well that if he surrendered or was taken he could expect no mercy, and he went to work accordingly strengthening the fortifications, and laying in stores of provisions, determined to fight to the last extremity. The captain of the guard who came to assist him had not the same reason for being so very obstinate in the defense of the town, and this difference in the situation of the two commanders led to difficulty in the end, as we shall presently see.

The Mongul princes began the siege of Otrar by filling up the ditches that encircled the outer wall of the town in the places where they wished to plant their battering-rams to make breaches in the walls. They were hindered a great deal in their work, as is usual in such cases, by the sallies of the besieged, who rushed upon them in the night in great numbers, and with such desperate fury that they often succeeded in destroying some of the engines, or setting them on fire before they could be driven back into the town. This continued for some time, until at last the Mongul princes began to be discouraged, and they sent word to their father, who was then engaged in the siege of Bokhara, informing him of the desperate defense which was made by the garrison of Otrar, and asking his permission to turn the siege into a blockade—that is, to withdraw from the immediate vicinity of the walls, and to content themselves with investing the city closely on every side, so as to prevent any one from going out or coming in, until the provisions of the town should be exhausted, and the garrison be starved into a surrender. In this way, they said, the lives of vast numbers of the troops would be saved.

But their father sent back word to them that they must do no such thing, but must go on and fight their way into the town, no matter how many of the men were killed.

So the princes began again with fresh ardor, and they pushed forward their operations with such desperate energy that in less than a month the outer wall, and the works of the besieged to defend it, were all in ruins. The towers were beaten down, the ramparts were broken, and many breaches were made through which the besiegers might be expected at any moment to force their way into the town. The besieged were accordingly obliged to abandon the outer walls and retire within the inner lines.

The Monguls now had possession of the suburbs, and, after pillaging them of all that they could convert to their own use, and burning and destroying every thing else, they advanced to attack the inner works; and here the contest between the besiegers and the garrison was renewed more fiercely than ever. The besieged continued their resistance for five months, defending themselves by every possible means from the walls, and making desperate sallies from time to time in order to destroy the Monguls' engines and kill the men.

At length Kariakas, the captain of the guard, who had been sent to assist the governor in the defense of the town, began to think it was time that the carnage should cease and that the town should be surrendered. But the governor, who knew that he would most assuredly be beheaded if in any way he fell into the hands of the enemy, would not listen to any proposal of the kind. He succeeded, also, in exciting among the people of the town, and among the soldiers of the garrison, such a hatred of the Monguls, whom he represented as infidels of the very worst character, the enemies alike of God and man, that they joined him in the determination not to surrender.

Kariakas now found himself an object of suspicion and distrust in the town and in the garrison on account of his having made the proposal to surrender, and feeling that he was not safe, he determined to make a separate peace for himself and his ten thousand by going out secretly in the night and giving himself up to the princes. He thought that by doing this, and by putting the Monguls in possession of the gate through which his troops were to march out, so as to enable them to gain admission to the city, his life would be spared, and that he might perhaps be admitted into the service of Genghis Khan.

But he was mistaken in this idea. The princes said that a man who would betray his own countrymen would betray them if he ever had a good opportunity. So they ordered him and all his officers to be slain, and the men to be divided among the soldiers as slaves.

They nevertheless took possession of the gate by which the deserters had come out, and by this means gained admission to the city. The governor fled to the citadel with all the men whom he could assemble, and shut himself up in it. Here he fought desperately for a month, making continual sallies at the head of his men, and doing every thing that the most resolute and reckless bravery could do to harass and beat off the besiegers. But all was in vain. In the end the walls of the citadel were so broken down by the engines brought to bear upon them, that one day the Monguls, by a determined and desperate assault made on all sides simultaneously, forced their way in, through the most dreadful scenes of carnage and destruction, and began killing without mercy every soldier that they could find.

The soldiers defended themselves to the last. Some took refuge in narrow courts and lanes, and on the roofs of the houses—for the citadel was so large that it formed of itself quite a little town—and fought desperately till they were brought down by the arrows of the Monguls. The governor took his position, in company with two men who were with him, on a terrace of his palace, and refused to surrender, but fought on furiously, determined to kill any one who attempted to come near him. His wife was near, doing all in her power to encourage and sustain him.

Genghis Khan had given orders to the princes not to kill the governor, but to take him alive. He wished to have the satisfaction of disposing of him himself. For this reason the soldiers who attempted to take him on the terrace were very careful not to shoot their arrows at him, but only at the men who were with him, and while they did so a great many of them were killed by the arrows which the governor and his two friends discharged at those who attempted to climb up to the place where they were standing.



After a while the two men were killed, but the governor remained alive. Yet nobody could come near him. Those that attempted it were shot, and fell back again among their companions below. The governor's wife supplied him with arrows as fast as he could use them. At length all the arrows were spent, and then she brought him stones, which he hurled down upon his assailants when they tried to climb up to him. But at last so many ascended together that the governor could not beat them all back, and he was at length surrounded and secured, and immediately put in irons.

The princes wrote word at once to their father that the town was taken, and that the governor was in their hands a prisoner. They received orders in return to bring him with them to Bokhara. While on the way, however, another order came requiring them to put the prisoner to death, and this order was immediately executed.

What was the fate of his courageous and devoted wife has never been known.



CHAPTER XX.

BATTLES AND SIEGES.

1219-1220

Continuation of the war.—Saganak.—Hassan.—The murdered embassador.—Jughi's revenge.—Jughi's general policy.—Account of a stratagem.—The town taken.—A beautiful city.—Toukat.—Toukat taken.—Arrangements for plundering it.—Kojend.—Timur Melek.—His preparations for defense.—Engines and battering-rams.—The floating batteries.—The morass.—Obstinate conflict.—The pretended deserters.—No more stones.—Building of the jetty.—The horsemen in the water.—Timur's boats.—The fire-proof awnings.—The fire-boats and the bridge.—The bridge burned.—Pursuit.—Battle in the river.—The boats aground.—Timur's adventures.—He finally escapes.—The governor's family.—Kojend surrendered.

After the fall of Bokhara and Otrar, the war was continued for two years with great vigor by Genghis Khan and the Monguls, and the poor sultan was driven from place to place by his merciless enemies, until at last his cause was wholly lost, and he himself, as will appear in the next chapter, came to a miserable end.

During the two years while Genghis Khan continued the war against him, a great many incidents occurred illustrating the modes of warfare practiced in those days, and the sufferings which were endured by the mass of the people in consequence of these terrible struggles between rival despots contending for the privilege of governing them.

At one time Genghis Khan sent his son Jughi with a large detachment to besiege and take a certain town named Saganak. As soon as Jughi arrived before the place, he sent in a flag of truce to call upon the people of the town to surrender, promising, at the same time, to treat them kindly if they would do so.

The bearer of the flag was a Mohammedan named Hassan. Jughi probably thought that the message would be better received by the people of the town if brought to them by one of their own countrymen, but he made a great mistake in this. The people, instead of being pleased with the messenger because he was a Mohammedan, were very much exasperated against him. They considered him a renegade and a traitor; and, although the governor had solemnly promised that he should be allowed to go and come in safety, so great a tumult arose that the governor found it impossible to protect him, and the poor man was torn to pieces by the mob.

Jughi immediately assaulted the town with all his force, and as soon as he got possession of it he slaughtered without mercy all the officers and soldiers of the garrison, and killed also about one half of the inhabitants, in order to avenge the death of his murdered messenger. He also caused a handsome monument to be erected to his memory in the principal square of the town.

Jughi treated the inhabitants of every town that dared to resist with extreme severity, while those that yielded at once were, in some degree, spared and protected. The consequence of this policy was that the people of many of the towns surrendered without attempting to defend themselves at all. In one case the magistrates and other principal inhabitants of a town came out to meet him a distance of two days' journey from them, bringing with them the keys of the town, and a great quantity of magnificent presents, all of which they laid at the conqueror's feet, and implored his mercy.

There was one town which Jughi's force took by a kind of stratagem. A certain engineer, whom he employed to make a reconnoissance of the fortifications, reported that there was a place on one side of the town where there was a ditch full of water outside of the wall, which made the access to the wall there so difficult that the garrison would not be at all likely to expect an attack on that side. The engineer proposed a plan for building some light bridges, which the soldiers were to throw over the ditch in the night, after having drawn off the attention of the garrison to some other quarter, and then, mounting upon the walls by means of ladders, to get into the town. This plan was adopted. The bridges and the ladders were prepared, and then, when the appointed night came, a feigned attack was made in the opposite part of the town. The garrison were then all called off to repel this pretended attack, and in this way the wall opposite to the ditch was left undefended. The soldiers then threw the bridges over the ditch, and planted the ladders against the wall, and before the garrison could get intelligence of what they were doing they had made their way into the town, and had opened one of the gates, and by this means the whole army got in. The engineer himself, who had proposed the plan, went up first on the first ladder that was planted against the wall. To take the lead in such an escalade required great coolness and courage, for it was dark, and no one knew, in going up the ladder, how many enemies he might have to encounter at the top of it.

The next place which the army of Jughi approached was a quiet and beautiful town, the seat of several institutions of learning, and the residence of learned men and men of leisure. It was a very pleasant place, full of fountains, gardens, and delightful pleasure-grounds, with many charming public and private promenades. The name of this place was Toukat, and the beauty and attractiveness of it were proverbial through all the country.

Toukat was a place rather of pleasure than of strength, and yet it was surrounded by a wall, and the governor of it determined to make an effort to defend it. The garrison fought bravely, and they kept the besiegers off for three days. At the end of that time the engines of the Monguls had made so many breaches in the walls that the governor was convinced that they would soon get in, and so he sent to Jughi to ask for the terms on which he would allow them to surrender. Jughi replied that he would not now make any terms with him at all. It was too late. He ought to have surrendered at the beginning.

So the Mongul army forced its way into the town, and slaughtered the whole garrison without mercy. Jughi then ordered all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, to repair to a certain place on the plain outside the walls. In obedience to this command, all the people went to the appointed place. They went with fear and trembling, expecting that they were all to be killed. But they found, in the end, that the object of Jughi in bringing them thus out of the town was not to kill them, but only to call them away from the houses, so that the soldiers could plunder them more conveniently while the owners were away. After being kept out of the town for a time they were allowed to return, and when they went back to their houses they found that they had been pillaged and stripped of every thing that the soldiers could carry away.

There was another large and important town named Kojend. It was situated two or three hundred miles to the northward of Samarcand, on the River Sir, which flows into Aral Lake. The governor of this city was Timur Melek. He was a very powerful chieftain, and a man of great military renown, having often been in active service under the sultan as one of the principal generals of his army. When Timur heard of the fall of Toukat, he presumed that his city of Kojend would be next attacked, as it seemed to come next in the way of the Mongul army; so he began to make vigorous preparations for defense. He broke up all the roads leading toward the town, and destroyed the bridges. He also laid in great supplies of food to maintain the inhabitants in case of a protracted siege, and he ordered all the corn, fruits, and cattle of the surrounding country, which he did not require for this purpose, to be taken away and stowed in secret places at a distance, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy.

Jughi did not himself attack this town, but sent a large detachment under the orders of a general named Elak Nevian. Elak advanced toward the city and commenced his operations. The first thing that was to be done was to rebuild a bridge over the river, so as to enable him to gain access to the town, which was on the opposite bank. Then he set up immense engines at different points along the line, some of which were employed to batter down the walls, and others, at the same time, to throw stones, darts, and arrows over the parapets, in order to drive the garrison back from them. These engines did great execution. Those built to batter down the walls were of great size and power. Some of them, it was said, threw stones over the wall as big as millstones.

Timur Melek was equally active in the defense of the town. He built a number of flat-bottomed boats, which might be called floating batteries, since they were constructed for throwing missiles of all sorts into the camp of the enemy. These batteries, it is said, were covered over on the top to protect the men, and they had port-holes in the sides, like a modern man-of-war, out of which, not cannon balls and bomb-shells indeed, but arrows, darts, javelins, and stones were projected. The boats were sent out, some on the upper side of the town and some on the lower, and were placed in stations where they could most effectually reach the Mongul works. They were the means of killing and wounding great multitudes of men, and they greatly disturbed and hindered the besiegers' operations.

Still Elak persevered. He endeavored to shut up the city on every side as closely as possible; but there was on one side a large morass or jungle which he could not guard, and Timur received a great many re-enforcements, to take the place of the men who were killed on the walls, by that way. In the mean time, however, Elak was continually receiving re-enforcements too from Prince Jughi, who was not at a great distance, and thus the struggle was continued with great fury.

At last Timur contrived an ingenious stratagem, by which he hoped to cause his enemy to fall into a snare. It seems that there was a small island in the river, not far from the walls of the city, on which, before the siege commenced, Timur had built a fortress, to be held as a sort of advanced post, and had garrisoned the fortress with about one thousand men. Timur now, in order to divert the attention of the Monguls from the city itself, sent a number of men out from the city, who pretended to be deserters, and went immediately to the Mongul camp. Of course, Elak questioned them about the defenses of the city, in order to learn where the weak points were for him to attack. The pretended deserters advised him to attack this fortress on the island, saying that it could very easily be taken, and that its situation was such that, when it was taken, the city itself must surrender, for it completely commanded the place.

So Elak caused his principal engines to be removed to the bank of the river, opposite the island, and employed all his energies and spent all his ammunition in shooting at the fortress; but the river was so wide, and the walls of the fortress wore so thick and so high, that he made very little impression. At last his whole supply of stones—for stones served in those days instead of cannon balls—was exhausted, and as the town was situated in an alluvial district, in which no stones were to be found, he was obliged to send ten or twelve miles to the upland to procure a fresh supply of ammunition. All this consumed much time, and enabled the garrison to recruit themselves a great deal and to strengthen their defenses.

The operations of the siege were in a great measure suspended while the men were obtaining a new supply of stones, and the whole disposable force of the army was employed in going back and forth to bring them. At length an immense quantity were collected; but then the Mongul general changed his plan. Instead of throwing the stones from his engines toward the fortress on the island, which it had been proved was beyond his reach, he determined to build out a jetty into the river toward it, so as to get a stand-point for his engines nearer the walls, where they could have some chance of doing execution. So he set his men at work to prepare fascines, and bundles, and rafts of timber, which were to be loaded with the stones and sunk in the river to form the foundation for the proposed bank. The men would bring the stones down to the bank in their hands, and then horsemen, who were ready on the brink, would take them, and, resting them on the saddle, would drive their horses in until they came near the place where the stones were to go, when they would throw them down and then return for others. In this way they could work upon the jetty in many parts at once, some being employed in building at the end where it abutted on the shore, while the horsemen were laying the foundations at the same time out in the middle of the stream. The work of the horsemen was very difficult and dangerous, on account of holes in the sandy bottom of the river, into which they were continually sinking. Besides this, the garrison on the walls were doing their utmost all the time to impede the work by shooting arrows, javelins, stones, and fiery darts among the workmen, by which means vast numbers, both of men and horses, were killed.

The Monguls, however, persevered, and, notwithstanding all the opposition which the garrison made, they succeeded in advancing the mole which they were building so far that Timur was convinced that they would soon gain so advantageous a position that it would be impossible for him to hold out against them. So he determined to attempt to make his escape. His plan was to embark on board his boats, with all his men, and go down the river in the night.

In order to prepare for this undertaking, he employed his men secretly in building more boats, until he had in all more than seventy. These boats were kept out of sight, in hidden places in the river, until all were ready. Each of them was covered with a sort of heavy awning or roof, made of wet felt, which was plastered over with a coating of clay and vinegar. This covering was intended both to defend the men from missiles and the boats themselves from being set on fire.

There was one obstacle to the escape of the boats which it was necessary to remove beforehand, and that was the bridge which the Monguls had built across the river, just below the town, when they first came to besiege it. To destroy this bridge, Timur one night made a sally from one of the gates, and attacked the men who were stationed to guard the bridge. At the same time he sent down the current of the river a number of great flat-bottomed boats, filled with combustibles of various kinds, mixed with tar and naphtha. These combustibles were set on fire before they were launched, and, as the current of the river bore them down one after another against the bridge, they set the wooden piers and posts that supported it on fire, while the guard, being engaged with the party which had sallied from the town, could not go to extinguish the flames, and thus the bridge was consumed.

The way being thus opened, Timur Melek very soon afterward embarked his family and the greater part of his army on board the boats in the night; and, while the Monguls had no suspicion of what was going on, the boats were launched, and sent off one after another swiftly down the stream. Before morning came all traces of the party had passed away.

Very soon, however, the Mongul general heard how his intended prey had escaped him, and he immediately sent off a strong detachment to follow the southern bank of the river and pursue the fugitives. The detachment soon overtook them, and then a furious battle ensued between the Mongul horsemen on the banks and in the margin of the water and the men in the boats, who kept the boats all the time as near as possible to the northern shore.

Sometimes, however, when the stream was narrow, or when a rocky point projected from the northern shore, so as to drive the boats nearer to the Mongul side, the battle became very fierce and bloody. The Monguls drove their horses far into the water, so as to be as near as possible to the boats, and threw arrows, javelins, and fiery darts at them, while the Mohammedans defended themselves as well as they could from their windows or port-holes.



Things went on in this way for some time, until, at length, the boats arrived at a part of the river where the water was so shallow—being obstructed by sand-bars and shoals—that the boats fell aground. There was nothing now for Timur to do but to abandon the boats and escape with his men to the land. This he succeeded in doing; and, after reaching the shore, he was able to form his men in array, on an elevated piece of ground, before Elak could bring up a sufficient number of men to attack him.

When the Monguls at length came to attack him, he beat them off in the first instance, but he was obliged soon afterward to leave the field and continue his retreat. Of course, he was hotly pursued by the Monguls. His men became rapidly thinned in number, some being killed, and others getting separated from the main body in the confusion of the flight, until, at last, Timur was left almost alone. At last he was himself on the very point of being taken. There were three Monguls closely pursuing him. He turned round and shot an arrow at the foremost of the pursuers. The arrow struck the Mongul in the eye. The agony which the wounded man felt was so great that the two others stopped to assist him, and in the mean time Timur got out of the way. In due time, and after meeting with some other hairbreadth escapes, he reached the camp of the sultan, who received him very joyfully, loaded him with praises for the indomitable spirit which he had evinced, and immediately made him governor of another city.

In the mean time, some of the boats which had been abandoned by the soldiers were got off by the men who had been left in charge of them—one especially, which contained the family of Timur. This boat went quietly down the river, and conveyed the family to a place of safety.

The city of Kojend, from which Timur and his men had fled, was, of course, now without any means of defense, and it surrendered the very next day to the Monguls.



CHAPTER XXI.

DEATH OF THE SULTAN.

1220

Pursuit of the sultan.—The two ladies.—Character of the queen-mother.—Khatun.—Her retirement.—Samarcand.—Fortifications of the place.—Water-works.—Gates and towers.—Crowds of people seeking refuge.—Encampment.—Arrival of the Monguls.—Dissensions within the city.—A deputation.—Massacre.—Escape of the governor.—Forlorn condition of the sultan.—The sultan sends away his treasures.—His flight and his despondency.—Narrow escape.—Rage of his pursuers.—Visit from his son Jalaloddin.—His dying words.—Death and burial.—Khatun at Karazm.—Her cruelty to her captives.—Dissension.—Khatun's escape.—Her obstinacy.—Cause of her hatred of Jalaloddin.—The siege of the fortress.—The governor's hopes.—Want of rain.—Great suffering.—The queen made captive.—Cruel treatment of the queen-mother.

In the mean time, while Jughi and the other generals were ravaging the country with their detachments, and besieging and capturing all the secondary towns and fortresses that came in their way, as related in the last chapter, Genghis Khan himself, with the main body of the army, had advanced to Samarcand in pursuit of the sultan, who had, as he supposed, taken shelter there. Samarcand was the capital of the country, and was then, as it has been since, a great and renowned city.

Besides the sultan himself, whom Genghis Khan was pursuing, there were the ladies of his family whom he wished also to capture. The two principal ladies were the sultana and the queen-mother. The queen-mother was a lady of very great distinction. She had been greatly renowned during the lifetime of her husband, the former sultan, for her learning, her piety, the kindness of her heart, and the general excellence of her character, so far as her dealings with her subjects and friends were concerned, and her influence throughout the realm had been unbounded. At some periods of her life she had exercised a great deal of political power, and at one time she bore the very grand title of Protectress of the faith of the world. She exercised the power which she then possessed, in the main, in a very wise and beneficial manner. She administered justice impartially. She protected the weak, and restrained the oppressions of the strong. She listened to all the cases which were brought before her with great attention and patience, and arrived almost always at just conclusions respecting them. With all this, however, she was very strict and severe, and, as has almost always been the case with women raised to the possession of irresponsible power, she was unrelenting and cruel in the extreme whenever, as she judged, any political necessity required her to act with decision. Her name was Khatun.[E]

[Footnote E: Pronounced Cah-toon.]

Khatun was not now at Samarcand. She was at Karazm, a city which was the chief residence of the court. She had been living there in retirement ever since the death of her husband, the present sultan's father.

Samarcand itself, as has already been said, was a great and splendid city. Like most of the other cities, it was inclosed in a double wall, though, in this case, the outer wall surrounded the whole city, while the inner one inclosed the mosque, the palace of the sultan, and some other public buildings. These walls were much better built and more strongly fortified than those of Bokhara. There were twelve iron gates, it is said, in the outer wall. These gates were a league apart from each other. At every two leagues along the wall was a fort capable of containing a large body of men. The walls were likewise strengthened with battlements and towers, in which the men could fight under shelter, and they were surrounded by a broad and deep ditch, to prevent an enemy from approaching too near to them, in order to undermine them or batter them down.

The city was abundantly supplied with water by means of hydraulic constructions as perfect and complete as could be made in those days. The water was brought by leaden pipes from a stream which came down from the mountains at some distance from the town. It was conveyed by these pipes to every part of the town, and was distributed freely, so that every great street had a little current of water running through it, and every house a fountain in the court or garden. Besides this, in a public square or park there was a mound where the water was made to spout up in the centre, and then flow down in little rivulets and cascades on every side.

The gates and towers which have been described were in the outer wall, and beyond them, in the environs, were a great many fields, gardens, orchards, and beautifully-cultivated grounds, which produced fruits of all sorts, that were sent by the merchants into all the neighboring countries. At a little distance the town was almost entirely concealed from view by these gardens and orchards, there being nothing to be seen but minarets, and some of the loftier roofs of the houses, rising above the tops of the trees.

There were so many people who flocked into Samarcand from the surrounding country for shelter and protection, when they learned that Genghis Khan was coming, that the place would hardly contain them. In addition to these, the sultan sent over one hundred thousand troops to defend the town, with thirty generals to command them. There were twenty large elephants, too, that were brought with the army, to be employed in any service which might be required of them during the siege. This army, however, instead of entering the city at once, encamped about it. They strengthened the position of the camp by a deep ditch which they dug, throwing up the earth from the ditch on the side toward the camp so as to form a redoubt with which to defend the ground from the Monguls. But as soon as Genghis Khan arrived they were speedily driven from this post, and forced to take shelter within the walls of the city. Here they defended themselves with so much vigor and resolution that Genghis Khan would probably have found it very difficult to take the town had it not been for dissensions within the walls. It seems that the rich merchants and other wealthy men of the city, being convinced that the place would sooner or later fall into the hands of the Monguls, thought it would be better to surrender it at once, while they were in a condition to make some terms by which they might hope to save their lives, and perhaps their property.

But the generals would not listen to any proposition of this kind. They had been sent by the sultan to defend the town, and they felt bound in honor, in obedience to their orders, to fight in defense of it to the last extremity.

The dissension within the city grew more and more violent every day, until at length the party of the inhabitants grew so strong and decided that they finally took possession of one of the gates, and sent a large deputation, consisting of priests, magistrates, and some of the principal citizens, to Genghis Khan, bearing with them the keys of the town, and proposing to deliver them up to him if he would spare the garrison and the inhabitants. But he said he would make no terms except with those who were of their party and were willing to surrender. In respect to the generals and the soldiers of the garrison he would make no promises.

The deputation gave up the keys and Genghis Khan entered the city. The inhabitants were spared, but the soldiers were massacred wherever they could be found. A great many perished in the streets. A considerable body of them, however, with the governor at their head, retreated within the inner wall, and there defended themselves desperately for four days. At the end of that time, finding that their case was hopeless, and knowing that they could expect no quarter from the Monguls in any event, they resolved to make a sally and cut their way through the ranks of their enemies at all hazards. The governor, accordingly, put himself at the head of a troop of one thousand horse, and, coming out suddenly from his retreat, he dashed through the camp at a time when the Monguls were off their guard, and so gained the open country and made his escape. All the soldiers that remained behind in the city were immediately put to the sword.

In the mean time, the sultan himself, finding that his affairs were going to ruin, retreated from province to province, accompanied by as large a force as he could keep together, and vainly seeking to find some place of safety. He had several sons, and among them two whose titles were Jalaloddin and Kothboddin. Jalaloddin was the oldest, and was therefore naturally entitled to be his father's successor; but, for some reason or other, the queen-mother, Khatun, had taken a dislike to him, and had persuaded her son, the sultan, to execute a sort of act or deed by which Jalaloddin was displaced, and Kothboddin, who was a great favorite of hers, was made heir to the throne in his place.

The sultan had other sons who were governors of different provinces, and he fled from one to another of these, seeking in vain for some safe retreat. But he could find none. He was hunted from place to place by detachments of the Monguls, and the number of his attendants and followers was continually diminishing, until at last he began to be completely discouraged.

At length, at one of the cities where he made a short stay, he delivered to an officer named Omar, who was the steward of his household, ten coffers sealed with the royal signet, with instructions to take them secretly to a certain distant fortress and lock them up carefully there, without allowing any one to know that he did it.

These coffers contained the royal jewels, and they were of inestimable value.

After this, one of his sons joined him with quite a large force, but very soon a large body of Monguls came up, and, after a furious battle, the sultan's troops were defeated and scattered in all directions; and he was again obliged to fly, accompanied by a very small body of officers, who still contrived to keep near him. With these he succeeded, at last, in reaching a very retired town near the Caspian Sea, where he hoped to remain concealed. His strength was now spent, and all his courage gone. He sank down into a condition of the greatest despondency and distress, and spent his time in going to the mosque and offering up prayers to God to save him from total ruin. He made confession of his sins, and promised an entire amendment of life if the Almighty would deliver him from his enemies and restore him to his throne.

At last the Mongul detachment that was in pursuit of him in that part of the country were informed by a peasant where he was; and one day, while he was at his prayers in the mosque, word was brought to him that the Monguls were coming. He rushed out of the mosque, and, guided by some friends, ran down to the shore and got into a boat, with a view of escaping by sea, all retreat by land being now cut off.

He had scarce got on board the boat when the Monguls appeared on the shore. The men in the boat immediately pushed off. The Monguls, full of disappointment and rage, shot at them with their arrows; but the sultan was not struck by any of them, and was soon out of the reach of his pursuers.

The sultan lay in the boat almost helpless, being perfectly exhausted by the terror and distress which he had endured. He soon began to suffer, too, from an intense pain in the chest and side, which gradually became so severe that he could scarcely breathe. The men with him in the boat, finding that he was seriously sick, made the best of their way to a small island named Abiskun, which is situated near the southeastern corner of the sea. Here they pitched a tent, and made up a bed in it, as well as they could, for the sufferer. They also sent a messenger to the shore to bring off a physician secretly. The physician did all that was in his power, but it was too late. The inflammation and the pain subsided after a time, but it was evident that the patient was sinking, and that he was about to die.

It happened that the sultan's son, Jalaloddin, the one who had been set aside in favor of his brother Kothboddin, was at this time on the main land not far from the island, and intelligence was communicated to him of his father's situation. He immediately went to the island to see him, taking with him two of his brothers. They were obliged to manage the business very secretly, to prevent the Monguls from finding out what was going on.

On the arrival of Jalaloddin, the sultan expressed great satisfaction in seeing him, and he revoked the decree by which he had been superseded in the succession.

"You, my son," said he, "are, after all, the one among all my children who is best able to revenge me on the Monguls; therefore I revoke the act which I formerly executed at the request of the queen, my mother, in favor of Kothboddin."

He then solemnly appointed Jalaloddin to be his successor, and enjoined upon the other princes to be obedient and faithful to him as their sovereign. He also formally delivered to him his sword as the emblem and badge of the supreme power which he thus conferred upon him.

Soon after this the sultan expired. The attendants buried the body secretly on the island for fear of the Monguls. They washed it carefully before the interment, according to custom, and then put on again a portion of the same dress which the sultan had worn when living, having no means of procuring or making any other shroud.

As for Khatun, the queen-mother, when she heard the tidings of her son's death, and was informed, at the same time, that her favorite Kothboddin had been set aside, and Jalaloddin, whom she hated, and who, she presumed, hated her, had been made his successor, she was in a great rage. She was at that time at Karazm, which was the capital, and she attempted to persuade the officers and soldiers near her not to submit to the sultan's decree, but to make Kothboddin their sovereign after all.

While she was engaged in forming this conspiracy, the news reached the city that the Monguls were coming. Khatun immediately determined to flee to save her life. She had, it seems, in her custody at Karazm twelve children, the sons of various princes that reigned in different parts of the empire or in the environs of it. These children were either held as hostages, or had been made captive in insurrections and wars, and were retained in prison as a punishment to their fathers. The queen-mother found that she could not take these children with her, and so she ordered them all to be slain. She was afraid that the Monguls, when they came, might set them free.

As soon as she was gone the city fell into great confusion on account of the struggles for power between the two parties of Jalaloddin and Kothboddin. But the sultana, who had made the mischief, did not trouble herself to know how it would end. Her only anxiety was to save her own life. After various wanderings and adventures, she at last found her way into a very retired district of country lying on the southern shore of the Caspian, between the mountains and the sea, and here she sought refuge in a castle or fortress named Ilan, where she thought she was secure from all pursuit. She brought with her to the castle her jewels and all her most valuable treasures.

But Genghis Khan had spies in every part of the country, and he was soon informed where Khatun was concealed. So he sent a messenger to a certain Mongul general named Hubbe Nevian, who was commanding a detachment in that part of the country, informing him that Khatun was in the castle of Ilan, and commanding him to go and lay siege to it, and to take it at all hazards, and to bring Khatun to him either dead or alive.

Hubbe immediately set off for the castle. The queen-mother, however, had notice of his approach, and the lords who were with her urged her to fly. If she would go with them, they said, they would take her to Jalaloddin, and he would protect her. But she would not listen to any such proposal. She hated Jalaloddin so intensely that she would not, even to save her life, put herself under his power. The very worst possible treatment, she said, that she could receive from the Monguls would be more agreeable to her than the greatest favors from the hand of Jalaloddin.

The ground of this extreme animosity which she felt toward Jalaloddin was not any personal animosity to him; it arose simply from an ancient and long-continued dislike and hatred which she had borne against his mother!

So Khatun refused to retire from the danger, and soon afterward the horde of Monguls arrived, and pitched their camp before the castle walls.

For three months Hubbe and his Monguls continued to ply the walls of the fortress with battering-rams and other engines, in order to force their way in, but in vain. The place was too strong for them. At length Genghis Khan, hearing how the case stood, sent word to them to give up the attempt to make a breach, and to invest the place closely on all sides, so as to allow no person to go out or to come in; in that way, he said, the garrison would soon be starved into a surrender.

When the governor of the castle saw, by the arrangements which Hubbe made in obedience to this order, that this was the course that was to be pursued, he said he was not uneasy, for his magazines were full of provisions, and as to water, the rain which fell very copiously there among the mountains always afforded an abundant supply.

But the governor was mistaken in his calculations in respect to the rain. It usually fell very frequently in that region, but after the blockade of the fortress commenced, for three weeks there was not the smallest shower. The people of the country around thought this failure of the rain was a special judgment of heaven against the queen for the murder of the children, and for her various other crimes. It was, indeed, remarkable, for in ordinary times the rain was so frequent that the people of all that region depended upon it entirely for their supply of water, and never found it necessary to search for springs or to dig wells.

The sufferings of the people within the fortress for want of water were very great. Many of them died in great misery, and at length the provisions began to fail too, and Khatun was compelled to allow the governor to surrender.

The Monguls immediately seized the queen, and took possession of all her treasures. They also took captive all the lords and ladies who had attended her, and the women of her household, and two or three of her great-grandchildren, whom she had brought with her in her flight. All these persons were sent under a strong guard to Genghis Khan.

Genghis Khan retained the queen as a captive for some time, and treated her in a very cruel and barbarous manner. He would sometimes order her to be brought into his tent, at the end of his dinner, that he might enjoy his triumph by insulting and deriding her. On these occasions he would throw her scraps of food from the table as if she had been a dog.

He took away the children from her too, all but one, whom he left with her a while to comfort her, as he said; but one day an officer came and seized this one from her very arms, while she was dressing him and combing his hair. This last blow caused her a severer pang than any that she had before endured, and left her utterly disconsolate and heart-broken.

Some accounts say that soon after this she was put to death, but others state that Genghis Khan retained her several years as a captive, and carried her to and fro in triumph in his train through the countries over which she had formerly reigned with so much power and splendor. She deserved her sufferings, it is true; but Genghis Khan was none the less guilty, on that account, for treating her so cruelly.



CHAPTER XXII.

VICTORIOUS CAMPAIGNS.

1220-1221

Continued conquests.—Efforts of Jalaloddin.—Jalaloddin becomes discouraged.—The governor's advice.—Renewed exertions.—Stratagem.—Fictitious soldiers.—Quarrel about a horse.—Disaffection.—Jalaloddin's forces divided.—Great battle in the defile.—Orders to take Jalaloddin alive.—He takes leave of his family.—His escape across the river.—His defiance of his pursuers.—Struggles of the horse.—Night spent in a tree.—Jalaloddin meets with friends.—Large body of men escaped.—Pressing wants.—Timely aid from Jamalarrazad.—Fate of the sultan's family.—Sunken treasures.—Jalaloddin's end.—Sieges.—Logs instead of stones for ammunition.—Modern bombs.—Bringing stones.—Occupation of slaves.—Shields.—Protection against fire.—Precautions.—Attempts at resistance.—Account of Kubru.—His noble spirit.—Kubru slain.—Pusillanimity.—Sorties by the garrisons.—Desperation of the people.—Mode of disposing of prisoners.—Prodigious slaughter.—Atrocities.—The pearl.—Genghis Khan's grandson killed.—His mother's revenge.—Principles of the Mohammedan faith.—Genghis Khan's opinion.—The spirit of religious bigotry.

After this Genghis Khan went on successfully for several years, extending his conquests over all the western part of Central Asia, while the generals whom he had left at home were extending his dominions in the same manner in the eastern portion. He overran nearly all of Persia, went entirely around the Caspian Sea, and even approached the confines of India.

In this expedition toward India he was in pursuit of Jalaloddin. Immediately after the death of his father, Jalaloddin had done all in his power to raise an army and carry on the war against Genghis Khan. He met with a great deal of embarrassment and difficulty at first, on account of the plots and conspiracies which his grandmother had organized in favor of his brother Kothboddin, and the dissensions among his people to which they gave rise. At last, in the course of a year, he succeeded, in some measure, in healing this breach and in raising an army; and, though he was not strong enough to fight the Monguls in a general battle, he hung about them in their march and harassed them in various ways, so as to impede their operations very essentially. Genghis Khan from time to time sent off detachments from his army to take him. He was often defeated in the engagements which ensued, but he always succeeded in saving himself and in keeping together a portion of his men, and thus he maintained himself in the field, though he was growing weaker and weaker all the time.

At last he became completely discouraged, and, after signal defeat which he met with from a detachment which had been sent against him by Genghis Khan, he went, with the few troops that remained together, to a strong fortress among the mountains, and told the governor that it seemed to him useless to continue the struggle any longer, and that he had come to shut himself up in the fortress, and abandon the contest in despair.

The governor, however, told him that it was not right for a prince, the descendant of ancestors so illustrious as his, and the inheritor of so resplendent a crown, to yield to discouragement and despondency on account of the reverses of fortune. He advised him again to take the field, and to raise a new army, and continue the contest to the end.

Jalaloddin determined to follow this advice, and, after a brief period of repose at the castle, he again took the field.

He made great exertions, and finally succeeded in getting together about twenty thousand men. This was a small force, it is true, compared with the numbers of the enemy; but it was sufficient, if well managed, to enable the prince to undertake operations of considerable importance, and Jalaloddin began to feel somewhat encouraged again. With his twenty thousand men he gained one or two victories too, which encouraged him still more. In one of these cases he defeated rather a singular stratagem which the Mongul general contrived. It seems that the Mongul detachment which was sent out in this instance against Jalaloddin was not strong enough, and the general, in order to make Jalaloddin believe that his force was greater than it really was, ordered all the felt caps and cloaks that there were in the army to be stuffed with straw, and placed on the horses and camels of the baggage, in order to give the appearance of a second line of reserve in the rear of the line of real soldiers. This was to induce Jalaloddin to surrender without fighting.

But in some way or other Jalaloddin detected the deceit, and, instead of surrendering, fought the Monguls with great vigor, and defeated them. He gained a very decided victory, and perhaps this might have been the beginning of a change of fortune for him if, unfortunately, his generals had not quarreled about the division of the spoil. There was a beautiful Arabian horse which two of his leading generals desired to possess, and each claimed it. The dispute became, at last, so violent that one of the generals struck the other in his face with the lash of his whip. Upon this the feud became a deadly one. Both parties appealed to Jalaloddin. He did not wish to make either general an enemy by deciding in favor of the other, and so he tried to compromise the matter. He did not succeed in doing this; and one of the generals, mortally offended, went off in the night, taking with him all that portion of the troops which was under his command.

Jalaloddin did every thing in his power to bring the disaffected general back again; but, before he could accomplish this purpose, Genghis Khan came up with a large force between the two parties, and prevented their effecting a junction.

Jalaloddin had now no alternative but to retreat. Genghis Khan followed him, and it was in this way that, after a time, both the armies reached the banks of the Indus, on the borders of India.

Jalaloddin, being closely pursued, took his position in a narrow defile near the bank of the river, and here a great battle was fought among the rocks and precipices. Jalaloddin, it is said, had only thirty thousand men at his command, while Genghis Khan was at the head of an army of three hundred thousand. The numbers in both cases are probably greatly exaggerated, but the proportion may perhaps be true.

It was only a small portion of the Mongul army that could get into the defile where the sultan's troops had posted themselves; and so desperately did the latter fight, that it is said they killed twenty thousand of the Monguls before they gave in. In fact, they fought like wild beasts, with desperate and unremitting fury, all day long. Toward night it became evident to Jalaloddin that it was all over with him. A large portion of his followers were killed. Some had made their escape across the river, though many of those who sought to do so were drowned in the attempt. The rest of his men were completely exhausted and discouraged, and wholly unable to renew the contest on the following day.

Jalaloddin had exposed himself very freely in the fight, in hopes, perhaps, that he should be killed. But Genghis Khan had given positive orders that he should be taken alive. He had even appointed two of his generals to watch carefully, and to see that no person should, under any circumstances, kill him. He wished to take him alive, in order to lead him through the country a prisoner, and exhibit him to his former subjects as a trophy of his victory, just as he had done and was still doing with the old queen Khatun, his grandmother.

But Jalaloddin was determined that his conqueror should not enjoy this pleasure. He resolved to attempt to save himself by swimming the river. He accordingly went first, breathless, and covered with dust and blood from the fight, to take a hurried leave of his mother, his wives, and his children, who, as was customary in those countries and times, had accompanied him in his campaign. He found them in his tent, full of anxiety and terror. He took leave of them with much sorrow and many tears, trying to comfort them with the hope that they should meet again in happier times. Then he took off his armor and his arms, in order that he might not be impeded in crossing the river, reserving, however, his sword and bow, and a quiver full of arrows. He then mounted a fresh horse and rode toward the river.

When he reached the bank of the river, the horse found the current so rapid and the agitation of the water so great that he was very unwilling to advance; but Jalaloddin spurred him in. Indeed, there was no time to be lost; for scarcely had he reached the shore when Genghis Khan himself, and a party of Monguls, appeared in view, advancing to seize him. They stopped on the bank when they saw Jalaloddin ride into the water among the rocks and whirlpools. They did not dare to follow him, but they remained at the water-side to see how his perilous adventure would end.

As soon as Jalaloddin found that he was out of their reach, he stopped at a place where his horse found a foothold, and turned round toward his pursuers with looks of hatred and defiance. He then drew his bow, and began to shoot at them with his arrows, and he continued to shoot until all the arrows in his quiver were exhausted. Some of the more daring of the Monguls proposed to Genghis Khan that they should swim out and try to take him. But Genghis Khan would not allow them to go. He said the attempt would be useless.

"You can do nothing at all with him," said he. "A man of such cool and determined bravery as that will defy and defeat all your attempts. Any father might be proud to have such a son, and any son proud to be descended from such a father."

When his arrows were all expended, Jalaloddin took to the river again; and his horse, after a series of most desperate struggles among the whirlpools and eddies, and the boiling surges which swept around the rocks, succeeded at length in carrying his master over. The progress of the horse was watched with great interest by Genghis Khan and his party from the shore as long as they could see him.

As soon as Jalaloddin landed, and had recovered a little from the fatigue and excitement of the passage, he began to look around him, and to consider what was next to be done. He found himself entirely alone, in a wild and solitary place, which he had reason to fear was infested with tigers and other ferocious beasts of prey, such as haunt the jungles in India. Night was coming on too, and there were no signs of any habitations or of any shelter. So he fastened his horse at the foot of a tree, and climbed up himself among the branches, and in this way passed the night.

The next morning he came down and began to walk along the bank of the river to see what he could find. He was in a state of great anxiety and distress. Suddenly, to his great relief and joy, he came upon a small troop of soldiers, accompanied by some officers, who had escaped across the river from the battle as he had done. Three of these officers were his particular friends, and he was overjoyed to see them. They had made their way across the river in a boat which they had found upon the bank at the beginning of the defeat of the army. They had spent the whole night in the boat, being in great danger from the shoals and shelving rocks, and from the impetuosity of the current. Finally, toward morning, they had landed, not far from the place where Jalaloddin found them.

Not long after this he came upon a troop of three hundred horsemen, who had escaped by swimming the river at a place where the water was more smooth, at some distance below. These men told him that about six miles farther down the stream there was a body of about four thousand men who had made their escape in a similar manner. On assembling these men, Jalaloddin found himself once more at the head of a considerable force.

The immediate wants of the men were, however, extremely pressing, for they were all wholly destitute of food and of every other necessary, and Jalaloddin would have been greatly embarrassed to provide for them had it not been for the thoughtfulness and fidelity of one of the officers of his household on the other side of the river. This officer's name was Jamalarrazad. As soon as he found that his master had crossed the river, knowing, too, that a great number of the troops had attempted to cross besides, and that, in all probability, many of them had succeeded in reaching the other bank, who would all be greatly in want of provisions and stores the next morning, he went to work at once, during the night, and loaded a very large boat with provisions, arms, money, and stuff to make clothing for the soldiers. He succeeded in getting off in this boat before his plan was discovered by the Monguls, and in the course of the next morning he reached the opposite bank with it, and thus furnished to Jalaloddin an abundant provision for his immediate necessities.

Jalaloddin was so much pleased with the conduct of Jamalarrazad in this affair that he appointed him at once to a very high and responsible office in his service, and gave him a new title of honor.

In the mean time, Genghis Khan, on the other side of the river, took possession the next morning of Jalaloddin's camp. Of course, the family of the sultan fell into his hands. The emperor ordered all the males to be killed, but he reserved the women for a different fate. Among the persons killed was a boy about eight years old, Jalaloddin's oldest son.

Jalaloddin had ordered his treasure to be sunk in the river, intending, probably, to come back and recover it at some future time. But Genghis Khan found out in some way where it was sunk, and he sent divers down for it, and thus obtained possession of it as a part of his booty.

After this, Jalaloddin remained five or six years in India, where he joined himself and his army with some of the princes of that country, and fought many campaigns there. At length, when a favorable opportunity occurred, he came back to his own country, and fought some time longer against the Monguls there, but he never succeeded in gaining possession of any substantial power.

Genghis Khan continued after this for two or three years in the Mohammedan countries of the western part of Asia, and extended his conquests there in every direction. It is not necessary to follow his movements in detail. It would only be a repetition of the same tale of rapine, plunder, murder, and devastation. Sometimes a city would surrender at once, when the conqueror approached the gates, by sending out a deputation of the magistrates and other principal inhabitants with the keys of the city, and with magnificent presents, in hopes to appease him. And they usually so far succeeded in this as to put the Mongul soldiery in good-humor, so that they would content themselves with ransacking and plundering the place, leaving the inhabitants alive. At other times the town would attempt to resist. The Monguls would then build engines to batter down the walls, and to hurl great stones over among the besieged. In many instances there was great difficulty in obtaining a sufficient supply of stones, on account of the alluvial character of the ground on which the city stood. In such cases, after the stones found near were exhausted, the besiegers would cut down great trees from the avenues leading to the town, or from the forests near, and, sawing the trunk up into short lengths, would use the immense blocks thus formed as ammunition for the engines. These great logs of heavy wood, when thrown over the walls, were capable of doing almost as much execution as the stones, though, compared with a modern bomb-shell—a monstrous ball of iron, which, after flying four or five miles from the battery, leaving on its way a fiery train through the air, descends into a town and bursts into a thousand fragments, which fly like iron hail in every direction around—they were very harmless missiles.

In sawing up the trunks of the trees into logs, and in bringing stones for the engines, the Monguls employed the prisoners whom they had taken in war and made slaves of. The amount of work of this kind which was to be done at some of the sieges was very great. It is said that at the siege of Nishabur—a town whose inhabitants greatly offended Genghis Khan by secretly sending arms, provisions, and money to Jalaloddin, after they had once surrendered to the Monguls and pretended to be friendly to them—the army of the Monguls employed twelve hundred of these engines, all of which were made at a town at some distance from the place besieged, and were then transported, in parts, by the slaves, and put together by them under the walls. While the slaves were employed in works of this kind, they were sometimes protected by wooden shields covered with raw hides, which were carried before them by other slaves, to keep off and extinguish the fiery darts and arrows which were shot at them from the wall.

Sometimes, too, the places where the engines were set up were protected by wooden bulwarks, which, together with the frame-work itself of the engines, were covered with raw hides, to prevent their being set on fire by the enemy. The number of raw hides required for this purpose was immense, and to obtain them the Monguls slaughtered vast herds of horses and cattle which they plundered from the enemy.

In order to embarrass the enemy in respect to ammunition for their engines, the people of a town, when they heard that the Monguls were coming, used to turn out sometimes in mass, several days before, and gather up all the stones they could find, and throw them into the river, or otherwise put them out of the way.

In some cases, the towns that were threatened, as has already been said, did not attempt to resist, but submitted at once, and cast themselves on the mercy of the conqueror. In such cases the Mongul generals usually spared the lives of the inhabitants, though they plundered their property. It sometimes happened, too, that after attempting to defend themselves for some time, the garrison would become discouraged, and then would attempt to make some terms or conditions with the conqueror before they surrendered. In these cases, however, the terms which the Monguls insisted upon were often so hard that, rather than yield to them, the garrison would go on fighting to the end.

In one instance there lived in a town that was to be assailed a certain sheikh, or prince, named Kubru, who was a man of very exalted character, as well as of high distinction. The Mongul general whom Genghis Khan had commissioned to take the town was his third son, Oktay. Oktay had heard of the fame of the sheikh, and had conceived a very high respect for him. So he sent a herald to the wall with a passport for the sheikh, and for ten other persons such as he should choose, giving him free permission to leave the town and go wherever he pleased. But the sheikh declined the offer. Then Oktay sent in another passport, with permission to the sheikh to take a thousand men with him. But he still refused. He could not accept Oktay's bounty, he said, unless it were extended to all the Mohammedans in the town. He was obliged to take his lot with the rest, for he was bound to his people by ties too strong to be easily sundered.

So the siege went on, and at the end of it, when the town was carried, the sheikh was slain with the rest in the streets, where he stood his ground to the last, fighting like a lion.

All the Mohammedan chieftains, however, did not possess so noble a spirit as this. One chieftain, when he found that the Monguls were coming, caused himself to be let down with ropes from the wall in the night, and so made his escape, leaving the town and the garrison to their fate.

The garrisons of the towns, knowing that they had little mercy to expect from their terrible enemies, fought often very desperately to the last, as they would have done against beasts of prey. They would suddenly open the gates and rush out in large bands, provided with combustibles of all kinds and torches, with which they would set fire to the engines of the besiegers, and then get back again within the walls before the Monguls could recover sufficiently from the alarm and confusion to intercept them. In this manner they destroyed a great many of the engines, and killed vast numbers of men.

Still the Monguls would persevere, and, sooner or later, the place was sure to fall. Then, when the inhabitants found that all hope was over, they had become so desperate in their hatred of their foes that they would sometimes set the town on fire with their own hands, and throw themselves and their wives and children into the flames, rather than fall into the hands of their infuriated enemies.

The cruelties which the Monguls perpetrated upon their unhappy victims when, after a long resistance, they finally gained possession of a town, were indeed dreadful. They usually ordered all the people to come out to an open space on the plain, and there, after taking out all the young and able-bodied men, who could be made useful in bringing stones and setting up engines, and other such labors, and also all the young and beautiful women, to be divided among the army or sold as slaves, they would put the rest together in a mass, and kill them all by shooting at them with arrows, just as if they had been beasts surrounded in a chase, excepting that the excitement and pleasure of shooting into such a mass of human victims, and of hearing the shrieks and cries of their terror, was probably infinitely greater to their brutal murderers than if it had been a herd of lions, tigers, and wolves that they were destroying.

It is said by the historians that in one case the number of people ordered out upon the plain was so great that it took four days for them to pass out and assemble at the appointed place, and that, after those who were to be spared had been separated from the rest, the number that were left to be slain was over one hundred thousand, as recorded by the secretaries who made an enumeration of them.

In another case the slaughter was so great that it took twelve days to count the number of the dead.

Some of the atrocities which were perpetrated upon the prisoners were almost too horrible to be described. In one case a woman, quite advanced in years, begged the Monguls to spare her life, and promised that, if they would do so, she would give them a pearl of great value.

They asked her where the pearl was, and she said she had swallowed it. The Monguls then immediately cut her down, and ripped her body open with their swords to find the pearl. They found it, and then, encouraged by this success, and thinking it probable that other women might have attempted to hide their jewels in the same way, they proceeded to kill and cut open a great number of women to search for pearls in their bodies, but they found no more.

At the siege of a certain city, called Bamiyan, a young grandson of Genghis Khan, wishing to please his grandfather by his daring, approached so near the wall that he was reached by an arrow shot by one of the archers, and killed. Genghis Khan was deeply affected by this event, and he showed by the bitterness of his grief that, though he was so utterly heartless and cruel in inflicting these woes upon others, he could feel for himself very acutely when it came to his turn to suffer. As for the mother of the child, she was rendered perfectly furious by his death. She thought of nothing but revenge, and she only waited for the town to be taken in order that she might enjoy it. When, at last, a practicable breach was made, and the soldiers began to pour into the city, she went in with the rest, and insisted that every man, woman, and child should be put to death. Her special rage was directed against the children, whom she seemed to take special pleasure in destroying, in vengeance for the death of her own child. The hatred and rage which she manifested against children extended even to babes unborn, and these feelings she evinced by atrocities too shocking to be described.

The opinions which Genghis Khan entertained on religious subjects appear from a conversation which he held at one time during the course of his campaigns in Western Asia with some learned Mohammedan doctors at Bokhara, which was the great seat at that time of science and philosophy. He asked the doctors what were the principles of their religion. They replied that these principles consisted of five fundamental points:

1. In believing in one God, the creator of all things, and the supreme ruler and governor of the universe.

2. In giving one fortieth part of their yearly income or gains to the poor.

3. In praying to God five times every day.

4. In setting apart one month in each year for fasting.

5. In making a pilgrimage to the temple in Mecca, there to worship God.

Genghis Khan told them that he believed himself in the first of these articles, and he approved of the three succeeding ones. It was very well, he said, to give one fortieth of one's income to the poor, and to pray to God five times a day, and to set apart a month in the year for a fast. But as to the last article, he could not but dissent from it entirely, for the whole world was God's house, and it was ridiculous, he said, to imagine that one place could really be any more fitting than another as a place for worshiping him.

The learned doctors were much dissatisfied with this answer. They were, in fact, more displeased with the dissent which the emperor expressed from this last article, the only one that was purely and wholly ritual in its character, than they were gratified with the concurrence which he expressed in all the other four. This is not at all surprising, for, from the times of the Pharisees down to the present day, the spirit of sectarianism and bigotry in religion always plants itself most strongly on the platform of externals. It is always contending strenuously for rites, while it places comparatively in the background all that bears directly on the vital and spiritual interests of the soul.