ithful Mussulmans. It is from God that all good things come; it is he
who gives the victory. The example of what has occurred at Gaza and Jaffa
ought to teach you that if I am terrible to my enemies, I am kind to my
friends, and, above all, benevolent and merciful to the poor."

The plague, that most dreadful scourge of the East, now broke out in the
army. It was a new form of danger, and created a fearful panic. The
soldiers refused to approach their sick comrades, and even the physicians,
terrified in view of the fearful contagion, abandoned the sufferers to die
unaided. Napoleon immediately entered the hospitals, sat down by the cots
of the sick soldiers, took their fevered hands in his own, even pressed
their bleeding tumors, and spoke to them words of encouragement and hope.
The dying soldiers looked upon their heroic and sympathizing friend with
eyes moistened with gratitude, and blessed him. Their courage was
reanimated and thus they gained new strength to throw off the dreadful
disease. "You are right," said a grenadier, upon whom the plague had made
such ravages, that he could hardly move a limb; "your grenadiers were not
made to die in a hospital." The physicians, shamed by the heroism of
Napoleon, returned to their duty. The soldiers, animated by the example of
their chief, no longer refused to administer to the wants of their
suffering comrades, and thus the progress of the infection in the army was
materially arrested. One of the physicians reproached Napoleon for his
imprudence, in exposing himself to such fearful peril. He coolly replied,
"It is but my duty. I am the commander-in-chief."

[Illustration: The Plague Hospital.]

Napoleon now pressed the siege of Acre. It was the only fortress in Syria
which could stop him. Its subjugation would make him the undisputed master
of Syria. Napoleon had already formed an alliance with the Druses and
other Christian tribes, who had taken refuge from the extortions of the
Turks, among the mountains of Lebanon, and they only awaited the capture
of Acre to join his standard in a body, and to throw off the intolerable
yoke of Moslem despotism. Delegations of their leading men frequently
appeared in the tent of Napoleon, and their prayers were fervently
ascending for the success of the French arms. That in this conflict
Napoleon was contending on the side of human liberty, and the allies for
the support of despotism, is undeniable. The Turks were not