r in the other, and in a few moments they were all reduced to
headless trunks. The Turks gave no quarter. The remorseless Butcher sat in
the court-yard of his palace, paying a liberal reward for the gory head of
every infidel which was laid at his feet. He smiled upon the ghastly
trophies heaped up in piles around him. The chivalric Sir Sydney must at
times have felt not a little abashed in contemplating the deeds of his
allies. He was, however, fighting to arrest the progress of free
institutions, and the scimitar of the Turk was a fitting instrument to be
employed in such a service. In promotion of the same object, but a few
years before, the "tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage" had been
called into requisition, to deluge the borders of our own land with blood.
Napoleon was contending to wrest from the hand of Achmet the Butcher, his
bloody scimitar. Sir Sydney, with the united despots of Turkey and of
Russia, was struggling to help him retain it.

Sir Sydney also issued a proclamation to the Druses, and other Christian
tribes of Syria, urging them to trust to the faith of a "Christian
knight," rather than to that of an "unprincipled renegado." But the
"Christian knight," in the hour of victory, forgot the poor Druses, and
they were left, without even one word of sympathy, to bleed, during ages
whose limits can not yet be seen, beneath the dripping yataghan of the
Moslem. Column after column of the French advanced to the assault, but all
were repulsed with dreadful slaughter. Every hour the strength of the
enemy was increasing. Every hour the forces of Napoleon were melting away,
before the awful storm sweeping from the battlements. In these terrific
conflicts, where immense masses were contending hand to hand, it was found
that the scimitar of the Turk was a far more efficient weapon of
destruction than the bayonet of the European.

Success was now hopeless. Sadly Napoleon made preparations to relinquish
the enterprise. He knew that a formidable Turkish army, aided by the
fleets of England and Russia, was soon to be conveyed from Rhodes to
Egypt. Not an hour longer could he delay his return to meet it. Had not
Napoleon been crippled by the loss of his fleet at Aboukir, victory at
Acre would have been attained without any difficulty. The imagination is
bewildered in contemplating the results which might have ensued. Even
without the aid of the fleet, but for the indomitable activity, courage,
and energy of Sir