CHAP. V.]

ST. JOHN or JERUSALEM.

81

acquaintance. At that very time the knights hadundertaken an attack on Lesbos. Why shouldthey too not try to profit by Mahomet’s death? Itwas then one of the richest islands held by theOttomans. Bajazet’s party had now become thestronger, by his being legitimately crowned atConstantinople. For him his very feebleness de-fended ; “ pity being akin to love,” particularlywith the soldier. Zain, though naturally a war-rior, was beaten in battle; so rode olf with fortyhorse, round by Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple,where he for some hours stopped to pray; else tra-velling day and night through the desert and un-known lands, got to Cairo; and ultimately, angryat that sultan’s offer to make a compromise be-tween the two princes, saying to him it was betterto have a part of the empire than none - clearly im-plying that, as younger, he might content himselfwith some distant province, while Bajazet con-tinued to reign at the metropolis—he rode awayanew on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and on return lefthis wife and infants (two, a boy and girl ) 1 inEgypt; and himself accepted an invitation to goback, and join the rebels in Caramania. The secondcampaign being as unsuccessful as his first, he deter-mined, as afinal resource,to throw himself on the pro-1 Bouliours: "Vie D’Aubusson, iy. 183.

VOL. III.

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