ROGER. OF WENDOVER. [A.D. 1018. throwing themselves from the windows, and many of them were drowned, the water being too much for them; about a hundred of them were taken alive and reserved for ransom. The Saracen-, who had retreated inside the tower, then set fire to the roof of it, on which the victorious Christians, unable to enduri' the heat, returned to their scaling ladder; they then let down the bridge, which was placed in the lower part of the machine, to the foot of the tower, which was narrow by reason of the waters which flowed round it ; they however attacked the door of the tower with iron mallets while the Saracens inside defended it. The double machine was still firmly fixed to the tower, but the wood of the scaling ladder was broken in many places. The walls of the machine, although pierced in many places by the missiles from the engines, continued immoveable from the ninth hour on the sixth day of the week till the tenth hour of the following Saturday. At length the Saracens entirely failing in their defence of the tower, asked for a truce, and surrendered themselves to the duke of Austria on condition of their iives being spared. The tower being thus reduced, the crusaders supplied themselves with provisions and with fresh soldiers, hoping next to subdue the city as they had the tower. Of the death of Saphadin, and the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem. After the capture of the tower in the river Nile, Saphadin, who had grown old in days of wickedness, the disinheritor of his nephews, and the wicked usurper of the kingdom of Asia, being overcome, as was said, with grief, died and was buried in hell ; he was succeeded by his son Coradin, a fierce and cruel man, who, in revenge for the siege of Donnetta, utterly destroyed the famous city of Jerusalem, and reduced to a heap of ruins the walls and towers of that city, except the temple of the Lord and the tower of David. They then held council as to destroying the noble sepulchre of our Lord, which they hail threatened to do in letters, which they sent to the citizens of Damietta for their consolation. However, on account of the reverence in which the place was held, no one of them dared to lay hands on it ; for in their book, the Alcoran, it is written, that our Lord Jesus Christ was conceived and born of the virgin Mary, whom they confessed to