CHAP. III.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

239

venerable Patriarch himself, yet a few who swamwell were saved, and I found myself on board agalley belonging to the Grand Master of the Hospi-tallers, with a large company of fugitives, andamongst them five of his own knights, all woundedlike himself . 1 Fact is, all remaining of Templarshad got into that tower, where many of the towns-men’s women and children had also taken refuge;and a first capitulation made of what the under-ground Saracens had already mined, without per-haps the sultan’s knowledge; three hundred of hishad been admitted, and instantly began to maltreatthe females. At which the few Templars, risinglike one man, attacked the brutes, and flung themdown from the roof dead, and would never hear ofcapitulating any more. So the sultan was forcedto order the tower to be scaled; and when Sara-cenic multitudes, scimitar in one hand and ladderin the other, were in the very act of scaling, downit toppled, by fortuitous yielding of wooden propsin the mine, and Templars, scalers, males, females,it buried them all together .” 2

How many days or nights after that is not known.Various accounts, each contradictory to the other.Like Saragossa, the streets were fields of battle for

1 French MS.—Michaud: Hist., v. 421.

2 Michaud: Hist., v. 145.