with him
his own soldiers and Capistran's crusaders. The plan completely
succeeded. With his own flotilla of boats he broke through that of the
Turks and made his entrance into the fortress in triumph. After this
the struggle was continued with equal resolution and ability on both
sides; such advantage as the Christians derived from the protection
afforded by the fortifications being fully compensated by the enormous
superiority in numbers both of men and cannon on the part of the
Turks. Without example in the history of the storming of fortresses
was the stratagem practised by Huniades when he permitted the picked
troops of the enemy, the janissaries, to penetrate within the
fortification and there destroyed them in the place they thought they
had taken. Ten thousand janissaries had already swarmed into the town
and were preparing to attack the bridges and gates of the citadel,
when Huniades ordered fagots soaked in pitch and sulphur and other
combustibles to be flung from the ramparts into the midst of the
crowded ranks of the janissaries. The fire seized on their loose
garments, and in a short time the whole body was a sea of fire. Every
one sought to fly. Then it was that Huniades sallied out with his
picked band, while Capistran with a tall cross in his hand and the cry
of "Jesus" on his lips followed with his crowd of fanatics, the cannon
of the fortress played upon the Turkish camp, the Sultan himself was
wounded and swept along by the stream of fugitives. Forty thousand
Turks were left dead upon the field, four thousand were taken
prisoners and three thousand cannon were captured.

According to the opinion of Huniades himself the Turks had never
suffered such a severe defeat. Its value as far as the Hungarians were
concerned was heightened by the fact that the ambitious Sultan was
personally humiliated. There was now great joy in Europe. At the news
of the brilliant victory _Te deum_ was sung in all the more important
cities throughout Europe, and the Pope wished to compliment Huniades
with a crown.

Alas! a crown of another character awaited him--that of his Redeemer,
in whose name he lived, fought, and fell. The exhalations from the
vast number of unburied or imperfectly buried bodies, festering in the
heat of summer, gave rise to an epidemic in the Christian camp, and to
this the great leader fell a victim. Huniades died August 11, 1456, in
the sixty-eighth year of his age. He died amid the intoxication of