Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered among the mountains of Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre, and attack the besiegers in concert with the garrison of Djezzar.  Junot, with his division, marched to encounter them, and would have been overwhelmed by their numbers, had not Napoleon himself followed and rescued him (April 8) at Nazareth, where the splendid cavalry of the orientals were, as usual, unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed musketry of the French.  Kleber, with another division, was in like manner endangered, and in like manner rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount Tabor (April 15).  The Mussulmans dispersed on all hands; and Napoleon, returning to his siege, pressed it on with desperate assaults, day after day, in which his best soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts of Djezzar’s gallantry, and the skill of his allies.  At length, however, a party of French succeeded in forcing their way into the great tower, and in establishing themselves in one part of it, in despite of all the resolution that could be opposed to them.  At the same critical moment, there appeared in the offing a Turkish fleet, which was known to carry great reinforcements for the Pacha.  Everything conspired to prompt Napoleon to finish his enterprise at whatever cost, and he was bravely seconded.

Sir Sydney Smith, however, was as resolute to hold out until the fleet should arrive, as Napoleon was eager to anticipate its coming.  The English commander repaired with his handful of seaman to the tower, and after a furious assault dislodged the occupants.  Buonaparte did not renew the attack in that quarter, but succeeded in breaking the wall in another part of the town; and the heroic Lannes headed a French party who actually entered Acre at that opening.  But Djezzar was willing they should enter.  He suffered them to come in unmolested; and then, before they could form, threw such a crowd of Turks upon them, that discipline was of no avail:  it was a mere multitude of duels, and the brave orientals with their scimitars and pistols, overpowered their enemies, and put them to death—­almost to a man.  Lannes himself was with difficulty carried back desperately wounded.

The rage of Buonaparte at these repeated discomfitures may be imagined.  The whole evil was ascribed, and justly, to the presence of Sir Sydney Smith; and he spoke of that chivalrous person ever after with the venom of a personal hatred.  Sir Sydney, in requital of Buonaparte’s proclamation—­inviting (as was his usual fashion) the subjects of the Pacha to avoid his yoke, and ally themselves with the invaders—­put forth a counter address to the Druses and other Christian inhabitants of Syria, invoking their assistance in the name of their religion, against the blasphemous general of a nation which had renounced Christianity.  Napoleon upon this said that Sir Sydney was a madman; and if his story be true, Sir Sydney challenged him