But Genghis Khan had spies in every part of the country, and he was soon informed where Khatun was concealed. So he sent a messenger to a certain Mongul general named Hubbe Nevian, who was commanding a detachment in that part of the country, informing him that Khatun was in the castle of Ilan, and commanding him to go and lay siege to it, and to take it at all hazards, and to bring Khatun to him either dead or alive.
Hubbe immediately set off for the castle. The queen-mother, however, had notice of his approach, and the lords who were with her urged her to fly. If she would go with them, they said, they would take her to Jalaloddin, and he would protect her. But she would not listen to any such proposal. She hated Jalaloddin so intensely that she would not, even to save her life, put herself under his power. The very worst possible treatment, she said, that she could receive from the Monguls would be more agreeable to her than the greatest favors from the hand of Jalaloddin.
The ground of this extreme animosity which she felt toward Jalaloddin was not any personal animosity to him; it arose simply from an ancient and long-continued dislike and hatred which she had borne against his mother!
So Khatun refused to retire from the danger, and soon afterward the horde of Monguls arrived, and pitched their camp before the castle walls.
For three months Hubbe and his Monguls continued to ply the walls of the fortress with battering-rams and other engines, in order to force their way in, but in vain. The place was too strong for them. At length Genghis Khan, hearing how the case stood, sent word to them to give up the attempt to make a breach, and to invest the place closely on all sides, so as to allow no person to go out or to come in; in that way, he said, the garrison would soon be starved into a surrender.
When the governor of the castle saw, by the arrangements which Hubbe made in obedience to this order, that this was the course that was to be pursued, he said he was not uneasy, for his magazines were full of provisions, and as to water, the rain which fell very copiously there among the mountains always afforded an abundant supply.
But the governor was mistaken in his calculations in respect to the rain. It usually fell very frequently in that region, but after the blockade of the fortress commenced, for three weeks there was not the smallest shower. The people of the country around thought this failure of the rain was a special judgment of heaven against the queen for the murder of the children, and for her various other crimes. It was, indeed, remarkable, for in ordinary times the rain was so frequent that the people of all that region depended upon it entirely for their supply of water, and never found it necessary to search for springs or to dig wells.
The sufferings of the people within the fortress for want of water were very great. Many of them died in great misery, and at length the provisions began to fail too, and Khatun was compelled to allow the governor to surrender.
The Monguls immediately seized the queen, and took possession of all her treasures. They also took captive all the lords and ladies who had attended her, and the women of her household, and two or three of her great-grandchildren, whom she had brought with her in her flight. All these persons were sent under a strong guard to Genghis Khan.
Genghis Khan retained the queen as a captive for some time, and treated her in a very cruel and barbarous manner. He would sometimes order her to be brought into his tent, at the end of his dinner, that he might enjoy his triumph by insulting and deriding her. On these occasions he would throw her scraps of food from the table as if she had been a dog.
He took away the children from her too, all but one, whom he left with her a while to comfort her, as he said; but one day an officer came and seized this one from her very arms, while she was dressing him and combing his hair. This last blow caused her a severer pang than any that she had before endured, and left her utterly disconsolate and heart-broken.
Some accounts say that soon after this she was put to death, but others state that Genghis Khan retained her several years as a captive, and carried her to and fro in triumph in his train through the countries over which she had formerly reigned with so much power and splendor. She deserved her sufferings, it is true; but Genghis Khan was none the less guilty, on that account, for treating her so cruelly.
CHAPTER XXII. VICTORIOUS CAMPAIGNS.
1220-1221
Continued conquests.-Efforts of Jalaloddin.-Jalaloddin becomes discouraged.-The governor's advice.-Renewed exertions.-Stratagem.-Fictitious soldiers.-Quarrel about a horse.-Disaffection.-Jalaloddin's forces divided.-Great battle in the defile.-Orders to take Jalaloddin alive.-He takes leave of his family.-His escape across the river.-His defiance of his pursuers.-Struggles of the horse.-Night spent in a tree.-Jalaloddin meets with friends.-Large body of men escaped.-Pressing wants.-Timely aid from Jamalarrazad.-Fate of the sultan's family.-Sunken treasures.-Jalaloddin's end.-Sieges.-Logs instead of stones for ammunition.-Modern bombs.-Bringing stones.-Occupation of slaves.-Shields.-Protection against fire.-Precautions.-Attempts at resistance.-Account of Kubru.-His noble spirit.-Kubru slain.-Pusillanimity.-Sorties by the garrisons.-Desperation of the people.-Mode of disposing of prisoners.-Prodigious slaughter.-Atrocities.-The pearl.-Genghis Khan's grandson killed.-His mother's revenge.-Principles of the Mohammedan faith.-Genghis Khan's opinion.-The spirit of religious bigotry.
After this Genghis Khan went on successfully for several years, extending his conquests over all the western part of Central Asia, while the generals whom he had left at home were extending his dominions in the same manner in the eastern portion. He overran nearly all of Persia, went entirely around the Caspian Sea, and even approached the confines of India.
In this expedition toward India he was in pursuit of Jalaloddin. Immediately after the death of his father, Jalaloddin had done all in his power to raise an army and carry on the war against Genghis Khan. He met with a great deal of embarrassment and difficulty at first, on account of the plots and conspiracies which his grandmother had organized in favor of his brother Kothboddin, and the dissensions among his people to which they gave rise. At last, in the course of a year, he succeeded, in some measure, in healing this breach and in raising an army; and, though he was not strong enough to fight the Monguls in a general battle, he hung about them in their march and harassed them in various ways, so as to impede their operations very essentially. Genghis Khan from time to time sent off detachments from his army to take him. He was often defeated in the engagements which ensued, but he always succeeded in saving himself and in keeping together a portion of his men, and thus he maintained himself in the field, though he was growing weaker and weaker all the time.
At last he became completely discouraged, and, after signal defeat which he met with from a detachment which had been sent against him by Genghis Khan, he went, with the few troops that remained together, to a strong fortress among the mountains, and told the governor that it seemed to him useless to continue the struggle any longer, and that he had come to shut himself up in the fortress, and abandon the contest in despair.
The governor, however, told him that it was not right for a prince, the descendant of ancestors so illustrious as his, and the inheritor of so resplendent a crown, to yield to discouragement and despondency on account of the reverses of fortune. He advised him again to take the field, and to raise a new army, and continue the contest to the end.