150 
LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS. 
him to seek refuge within the fort. Many desperate 
encounters took place under the walls ; and Shah 
Ismael, finding that the siege was likely to he pro- 
tracted to a great length, affected to retire towards 
Persia. “ Sheebany Khan followed him with twenty- 
five thousand men ; but had scarcely passed a river 
about two miles from Merv, when Shah Ismael, who 
threw a body of horse into his rear, broke down the 
bridge and fell upon him with seventy thousand 
cavalry. The regulated valour of the Kezzelbashes, or 
Red-bonnets, a name given to the Persian soldiers, 
speedily prevailed. Sheebany Khan was defeated, 
and his retreat cut off. He was forced to fly, attend- 
ed by about five hundred men, chiefly the sons of 
sultans, the heads of tribes, and men of rank, into an 
enclosure which had been erected for accommodating 
the cattle of travellers and of the neighbouring pea- 
sants. They were closely pursued and hard pressed. 
The enclosure had only one issue, which was attacked 
by the pursuers. The khan leaped his horse over the wall 
of the enclosure towards the river, but fell and was soon 
overlaid and smothered by the numbers who followed 
him. After the battle, his dead body was sought for, and 
disentangled from the heap of slain by which it was 
covered. His head was cut off and presented to Shah 
Ismael, who ordered his body to be dismembered and 
his limbs sent to different parts of his kingdom. The 
skin of the head was stripped off, stuffed with hay, 
and forwarded to Sultan Bayezid, the son of Sultan 
Mohammed of Ghizny, the Turkish emperor of Con- 
stantinople. His skull, set in gold, the king used as 
