ers 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 di