830 CONQUESTS OF THE SARACENS. 



town did not include that of the citadel, which the 

 martial genius of Youkinna, who, at the head of 

 12,000 men, had routed a detachment of Arabs, was 

 determined to maintain to the last. For more than 

 four months he set the arms of Obeidah and the 

 valour of Khaled at defiance. Three hundred Chris- 

 tian captives were beheaded before the castle-wall ; 

 but this execution had no effect in subdiiing the 

 resolution of the besieged. Omar was applied to 

 for advice, and a reinforcement of fresh troops was 

 despatched, with a train of horses and camels to 

 expedite their march. Among these subsidiaries 

 was Dames, a gigantic Arab, of servile birth, but of 

 invincible strength and courage ; and his single in- 

 trepidity effected what the miited perseverance of 

 the Moslems had failed to accomplish. Weary at 

 seeing their hopes and their patience consumed at 

 the foot of this impregnable lortress, on the forty- 

 seventh .day after his arrival he proposed, with only 

 thirty men, to take the place by stratagem. His 

 design was concealed vmder the appearance of a 

 retreat ; and the tents of the Arabs were removed 

 to the distance of three miles from Aleppo. A Greek 

 belonging to the garrison was seized, and from him 

 some useful communications were extracted.* At 

 the dead of night the adventurers crawled to the 

 foot of the wail, where they lay in ambush. Their 

 leader was covered with a shaggy skin, and provided 

 with a hard crust of bread, that, in case of discovery, 

 he might elude suspicion by imitating the noise of a 

 dog gnawing a bone. Having scaled the most ac- 

 cessible part of the precipice, he ordered seven of 

 his companions to mount on each other's shoulders, 

 himself sustaining and raising the weight of the 

 whole column, till the highest reached the top of 

 the battlements. The watchmen, who were asleep, 



* " God curse these dogs," said the illiterate slave when he 

 heard the Greek spealt, " Vvhat a barbarous language they use !" 



