volume one

322 nisTOET OF the cbusades.
Turcomans, wandering and barbarous tribes, bad joined bis
standard, attracted by tbe bopes of a ricb booty. At tbe
lii'st signal given by Zengui, the city was suiTounded on all
sides ; seven enormous wooden towers were raised higher
than the rampai^ts ; numbers of formidable machines un-
ceasinglv battered the walls, or hurled into the city stones,
iavelins. and inflammable matters ; whilst the foundations of
the towers of the fortifications were being undermined by
the infidels. The walls, which were only supported by
slight, ill-fixed posts, were falling to pieces, and, covering
the earth with their ruins, seemed ready to offer an easy
passage to the Mussulman soldiers.
AVhen on the point to give the signal for destruction, the
fierce Mussulmans stopped, and summoned the city to surrender.
The sight of the death which threatened them did
not at all weaken the courage of the inhabitants, and they
answered that they would all perish sooner than give up a
Christian city to the iofidels. They exhorted each other to
" Let us not fear," said they,
merit the cro^vn of martyrdom :
" these stones launched agaiast our towers and our houses ;
he who made the firmament, and created legions of angels,
defends us agaiast his enemies, or prepares us an abode in
heaven." Animated by such discourses, the inhabitants of
Edessa exerted themselves to destroy the towers and the
works of the besiegers, the hopes of beiug succoured redoubliag
their zeal and courage. They expected, says an
Armenian author, assistance from a nation which they called
the valiant, and every day looked to see, from the height of
their walls, the standards of the victorious Franks.
The hoped-for succoui's were vainly expected. "When
Josselin learnt the danger of his capital, he aroused himself
from his sloth, and sent information of it to Ea}TQond of
Poictiers, and the queen regent of Jerusalem. But the
prince of Antioch, who disliked Josselin, refused to assist
Edessa, and the troops of Jerusalem, although set forward
on their march, could not arrive in time. Josselin ought to
have devoted himself to repair the consequences of his faults,
but he had not the courage to seek death under the walls of a
city he could not save, and whose defence he had neglected.
On the twenty-eighth day of the siege, several towers feU
dcwn with a horrible crash ; and Zengui at once ordered his
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