After a while the two men were killed, but the governor remained alive. Yet nobody could come near him. Those that attempted it were shot, and fell back again among their companions below. The governor's wife supplied him with arrows as fast as he could use them. At length all the arrows were spent, and then she brought him stones, which he hurled down upon his assailants when they tried to climb up to him. But at last so many ascended together that the governor could not beat them all back, and he was at length surrounded and secured, and immediately put in irons.
The governor's fate.
The princes wrote word at once to their father that the town was taken, and that the governor was in their hands a prisoner. They received orders in return to bring him with them to Bokhara. While on the way, however, another order came requiring them to put the prisoner to death, and this order was immediately executed.
What was the fate of his courageous and devoted wife has never been known.
Chapter XX.
Battles and Sieges.
1219-1220
Continuation of the war.