Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/236

210 he could confide. He had also poured in large reinforcements both of men and munitions of war. The Persian historian says, on this head, that “the princes of Europe had sent there many brave Christian warriors; or, to speak more plainly, a baud of mad devils.” Everything, therefore, had been done to render the place as secure as its exposed position would permit.

Timour, finding his proposals rejected, gave instructions to his generals to commence the siege at once. Under their command, however, little or no progress was made. At length he himself arrived before the place on the 6th day of the month Djémazul-Evel, 80 (the 1st December, 1402). His first act was to summon the garrison to a prompt surrender. In order to secure the immediate submission of the fortresses he attacked in person Timour had adopted a system from which he never deviated. On the first day a white flag was hoisted over his pavilion: this signified that if the town surrendered on that day, the lives of its people would be spared, and the place itself preserved from pillage. On the second day a red flag was substituted: the conditions then were, the death of the governor and of the leading inhabitants, but still with security to the masses. Should this day pass without submission, on the third morning a black flag was seen waving; this was final, and from that moment the only hope of the garrison was a successful resistance, as the capture of the place was inevitably followed by the massacre of all the inhabitants, and. the town itself delivered over to pillage.

This last stage having been reached, the defenders of Smyrna knew their fate, and prepared manfully for resistance. Timour’s first attempt at an assault was frustrated by the knights with great slaughter. Pouring upon the assailants every species of missile which the art of war had in those days developed, including Greek fire, boiling oil, seething pitch, and other similar devices, they at length succeeded in driving the Tartars back in confusion to their camp. The bitter experience of this failure shewed Timour that he was now confronted by men against whom the dashing and off-hand measures he had so often successfully adopted would be unavailing. Bold and determined though the onset might be, he was met by a foe who could die, but would not yield, and against that living