d go with them, they said, they would take her to
Jalaloddin, and he would protect her. But she would not listen to any
such proposal. She hated Jalaloddin so intensely that she would not,
even to save her life, put herself under his power. The very worst
possible treatment, she said, that she could receive from the Monguls
would be more agreeable to her than the greatest favors from the hand
of Jalaloddin.

The ground of this extreme animosity which she felt toward Jalaloddin
was not any personal animosity to _him_; it arose simply from an
ancient and long-continued dislike and hatred which she had borne
against his mother!

So Khatun refused to retire from the danger, and soon afterward the
horde of Monguls arrived, and pitched their camp before the castle
walls.

For three months Hubbe and his Monguls continued to ply the walls of
the fortress with battering-rams and other engines, in order to force
their way in, but in vain. The place was too strong for them. At
length Genghis Khan, hearing how the case stood, sent word to them to
give up the attempt to make a breach, and to invest the place closely
on all sides, so as to allow no person to go out or to come in; in
that way, he said, the garrison would soon be starved into a
surrender.

When the governor of the castle saw, by the arrangements which Hubbe
made in obedience to this order, that this was the course that was to
be pursued, he said he was not uneasy, for his magazines were full of
provisions, and as to water, the rain which fell very copiously there
among the mountains always afforded an abundant supply.

But the governor was mistaken in his calculations in respect to the
rain. It usually fell very frequently in that region, but after the
blockade of the fortress commenced, for three weeks there was not the
smallest shower. The people of the country around thought this failure
of the rain was a special judgment of heaven against the queen for the
murder of the children, and for her various other crimes. It was,
indeed, remarkable, for in ordinary times the rain was so frequent
that the people of all that region depended upon it entirely for their
supply of water, and never found it necessary to search for springs or
to dig wells.

The sufferings of the people within the fortress for want of water
were very great. Many of them died in great misery, and at length the
provisions began to fail too, and Khatun was compelled to allow the
governor to su