gether, he divided among them, in a very calm and composed manner,
all his personal effects, and then took leave of them and dismissed
them.

A single officer only now remained with him. In the presence of this
officer he wrote a few words, and then sent him away. As soon as the
officer had gone, he drank a cup of poison which he had previously
ordered to be prepared for him, and in a few minutes was a lifeless
corpse.

In the mean time, the other general, Mon-yen, had been making
preparations to leave the city. His plan was to take with him such
troops as might be serviceable to the emperor, but to leave all the
inmates of the palace, as well as the inhabitants of the city, to
their fate. Among the people of the palace were, it seems, a number of
the emperor's wives, whom he had left behind at the time of his own
flight, he having taken with him at that time only a few of the more
favored ones. These women who were left, when they heard that Mon-yen
was intending to abandon the city with a view of joining the emperor
in the south, came to him in a body, and begged him to take them with
him.

In order to relieve himself of their solicitations, he said that he
would do so, but he added that he must leave the city himself with the
guards to prepare the way, and that he would return immediately for
them. They were satisfied with this promise, and returned to the
palace to prepare for the journey. Mon-yen at once left the city, and
very soon after he had gone, Mingan, the Mongul general, arrived at
the gates, and, meeting with no effectual resistance, he easily forced
his way in, and a scene of universal terror and confusion ensued. The
soldiers spread themselves over the city in search of plunder, and
killed all who came in their way. They plundered the palace and then
set it on fire. So extensive was the edifice, and so vast were the
stores of clothing and other valuables which it contained, even after
all the treasures which could be made available to the conquerors had
been taken away, that the fire continued to burn among the ruins for a
month or more.

What became of the unhappy women who were so cruelly deceived by
Mon-yen in respect to their hopes of escape does not directly appear.
They doubtless perished with the other inhabitants of the city in the
general massacre. Soldiers at such a time, while engaged in the sack
and plunder of a city, are always excited to a species of insane fury,
and take a savage del