hundred men.

Around this town the Turkish army raged and thundered in its usual
fashion. Within it the garrison defended themselves with all the spirit
and energy they could muster. Step by step the Turks advanced. The
outskirts of the town were destroyed by fire and the assailants were
within its walls. The town being no longer tenable, Zrinyr took refuge,
with what remained of the garrison, in the fortress, and still bade
defiance to his foes.

Solyman, impatient at the delay caused by the obstinacy of the defender,
tried with him the same tactics he had employed with Jurissitz many
years before,--those of threats and promises. Tempting offers of wealth
proving of no avail, the sultan threatened the bold commander with the
murder of his son George, a prisoner in his hands. This proved equally
unavailing, and the siege went on.

It went on, indeed, until Solyman was himself vanquished, and by an
enemy he had not taken into account in his thirst for glory--the grim
warrior Death. Temper killed him. In a fit of passion he suddenly died.
But the siege went on. The vizier concealed his death and kept the
batteries at work, perhaps deeming it best for his own fortunes to be
able to preface the announcement of the sultan's death with a victory.

The castle walls had been already crumbling under the storm of balls.
Soon they were in ruins. The place was no longer tenable. Yet Zrinyr was
as far as ever from thoughts of surrender. He dressed himself in his
most magnificent garments, filled his pockets with gold, "that they
might find something on his corpse," and dashed on the Turks at the head
of what soldiers were left. He died, but not unrevenged. Only after his
death was the Turkish army told that their great sultan was no more and
that they owed their victory to the shadow of the genius of Solyman the
Magnificent.

THE PEASANTS AND THE ANABAPTISTS.

Germany, in great part, under the leadership of Martin Luther, had
broken loose from the Church of Rome, the ball which he had set rolling
being kept in motion by other hands. The ideas of many of those who
followed him were full of the spirit of fanaticism. The pendulum of
religious thought, set in free swing, vibrated from the one extreme of
authority to the opposite extreme of license, going as far beyond Luther
as he had gone beyond Rome. There arose a sect to which was given the
name of Anabaptists, from its rejection of infant baptism, a sect with a
stran