host of rebels and Tartars were
sent to overrun the whole of Austria below the Enns on this side of the
Danube, and to waste it with fire and sword. This was done. On the
ninth of July, detached troops of Spahis and Tartars appeared before the
walls of Bertholdsdorf, but were beaten back by our armed citizens.
Those attacks were repeated on the tenth and twelfth, and also repulsed;
but as at this time the enemy met with a determined resistance from the
city of Vienna, which they had invested, they gathered in increased force
about our devoted town, and on the fifteenth of July attacked us with
such fury on every side that, seeing it was no longer possible to hold
out against them, partly from their great numbers, and partly from our
failing of powder; and, moreover, seeing that they had already set fire
to the town in several places, we were compelled to seek shelter with our
goods and chattels in the church and fortress, neither of which were as
yet touched by the flames.

"On the sixteenth, the town itself being then in ashes, there came a
soldier dressed in the Turkish costume, save that he wore the leather
jerkin of a German horseman, into the high street, and waving a white
cloth, he called out in the Hungarian language, to those of us who were
in the fortress, that if we would ask for grace, both we and ours should
be protected, and a safe conduct (salva quartier) given to us, that
should be our future defence. Thereupon we held honest counsel together,
citizens and neighbours then present, and in the meantime gave reply,
translated also into Hungarian, that if we should agree thereto, we would
set up a white flag upon the tower as a sign of our submission. Early on
the morning of the nineteenth of July there came a Pasha from the camp at
Vienna, at the head of a great army, and with him the same Turk who had
on the previous day made the proposal to us. And the Pasha sat himself
down upon a red carpet spread on the bare ground, close by the house of
Herr Streninger, till we should agree to his terms. It was five o'clock
in the morning before we could make up our minds.

"Then, when we were all willing to surrender, our enemies demanded, in
the first place, that two of our men should march out of the fortress as
hostages, and that two Turks should take their places with us; and that a
maiden, with loose streaming hair, and a wreath upon her forehead, should
bring forth the key of the town, seeing that this p