sooner were they again at sea, than the capitan-pasha, summoning the
principal officers on board his galley, read the _khatt sheeref_ of the
sultan, announcing that he had taken up arms for the conquest of Candia.
War had, in the mean time, been formally declared against the Republic
at Constantinople, and the Venetian envoy, Soranzo, imprisoned in the
Seven Towers: but he had previously contrived to communicate to the
Signory his suspicions of the impending storm; and supplies and
reinforcements had been hastily dispatched from Venice to Andrea
Cornaro, the _inquisitore_, or governor of Crete, in the event of its
bursting in that quarter. Little serious apprehension seems, however, to
have been entertained; and great was the consternation of the Candiote
population, when, on the morning of June 24, the vast armament of the
Ottomans was seen rounding Cape Spada, and disembarking the troops near
Canea, on the same spot where, according to tradition, the standards of
Islam had first been displayed, 820 years before, by the Saracens of
Spain.

The strong ramparts of Canea opposed but an ineffectual resistance to
the numbers and resolution of the Ottomans, who pressed the siege with
all the ardour arising from the confidence of success; and after fifty
days of open trenches, and the failure of two assaults, the second
fortress of the island capitulated, August 17. The churches and the
cathedral of St Nicholas were converted into mosques: and Delhi-Hussein
(whose subsequent tragical fate has been already commemorated) was sent
out to take the government of this new conquest. The brave Yusuf,
returning to Constantinople at the end of the year, was at first
received with the highest honours by Ibrahim, but soon after put to
death in one of his fits of senseless cruelty; but the Ottomans in
Crete, under the gallant leadership of Delhi-Hussein, who now became
_serdar_ or commander-in-chief, overran and occupied the inland