PERILS AND SUSPENSE.
THE Saracen chiefs, after having dyed their sabres in the blood of the sultan, did not confine their menaces and violent demonstrations to the tent in which the captive King of France was lodged. With swords drawn and battle-axes on their shoulders, thirty of them boarded the galley where Joinville was with the Count of Brittany, Sir Baldwin d'Ebelin, and the Constable of Cyprus, and menaced them with gestures and furious imprecations.
'I asked Sir Baldwin d'Ebelin,' writes Joinville, 'what they were saying; and he, understanding Saracenic, replied that they were come to cut off our heads, and shortly after I saw a large body of our men on board confessing themselves to a monk of La Trinité, who had accompanied the Count of Flanders. I no longer thought of any sin or evil I had done, but that I was about to receive my death. In consequence, I fell on my knees at the feet of one of them, and making the sign of the cross, said "Thus died St. Agnes." The Constable of Cyprus knelt beside me, and confessed himself to me, and I gave him such absolution as god was pleased to grant me the power of bestowing. But of all the things he had said to me, when I rose up I could not remember one of them.'
'We were confined in the hold of the galleys,' continues the chronicler, 'and laid heads and heels together. We thought it had been so ordered because they were afraid of attacking us in a body, and that they would destroy us one at a time. This danger lasted the whole night. I had my feet right on the face of the Count of Brittany, whose feet, in return, were beside my face. On the morrow we were taken out of the hold, and the emirs sent to inform us that we might renew the treaties we had made with the sultan.'
'So far, all seemed well. But the danger was not yet over, as the Crusaders were destined to feel. At first the form of the oaths to be taken by the king and the emirs presented much difficulty; and, even when it was settled, the emirs in council gravely discussed the propriety of putting the French king and his barons to death. Only one of them pleaded for keeping faith; and his voice would have been drowned in the clamour, but fortunately he used an argument which appealed irresistibly to their cupidity.'
'You may put these Franks to death if you will,' said he; 'but reflect ere doing so that dead men pay no ransom.'
Nevertheless, it really seemed that after all the Crusaders were doomed; and while they were on board the galleys, and this discussion was proceeding, an incident occurred which caused them to give themselves up for lost.
'One of the emirs that were against us,' says Joinville, 'threatening we were to be slain, came to the bank of the river, and shouted out in Saracen to those who were on board our galley, and, taking off his turban, made signs, and told them they were to carry us back to Babylon. The anchors were instantly raised, and we were carried a good league up the river. This caused great grief to all of us, and many tears fell from our eyes, for we now expected nothing but death.'
And what in the meantime was taking place in Damietta?
Nothing in truth could have exceeded the anxiety which prevailed within the walls of that city, when thither were carried tidings of the assassination of the Sultan of Egypt, and of the new danger to which the King of France and the captive Crusaders were exposed.
The aspect of affairs was indeed menacing; and it was not till messengers from King Louis came to announce that the treaty was to be maintained and the city evacuated, that something like confidence was restored. On the evening of Friday, Queen Margaret, with the Countesses of Anjou, Poictiers, and Artois, and the other ladies, went on board a Genoese vessel. As night advanced, Oliver de Thermes and all the Crusaders who had garrisoned Damietta embarked on the Nile, and Geoffrey de Segrines, having brought the keys to the emirs, the Saracens took possession. Next morning at daybreak the Moslem standards were floating over tower and turret. But still King Louis was in the hands of his enemies, and still the emirs were debating whether or not they ought to put him and the companions of his captivity to death.
At the mouth of the Nile, a Genoese galley awaited the king; and, while every eye was strained towards the shore with an anxiety which was not without cause, Walter Espec and Bisset, the English knight, stood on deck in no enviable frame of mind.
'I mislike all this delay,' said Walter, more agitated than he was wont to appear. 'What if, after all, these emirs should prove false to their covenant?'
'In truth,' replied Bisset, 'it would not amaze me so much as many things that have come to pass of late; and both the king and his nobles may yet find to their cost that their hopes of freedom are dashed; for we all know the truth of the proverb as to there being so much between the cup and the lip.'
At this moment they observed the galleys, on board of which Joinville and other captive Crusaders were, move up the Nile, and each uttered an exclamation of horror.
'Now may Holy Katherine be our aid,' cried Walter, 'for our worst anticipations are like to be realised.'
'The saints forbid,' replied Bisset; 'and yet I am not so hopeful as I might be, for I have long since learned not to holloa till out of the wood.'
It was indeed a critical moment for Louis and his nobles; but in the council of the emirs the milder views ultimately prevailed, and Bisset and Walter Espec observed with delight that the galleys which had moved up the Nile were brought back towards Damietta, and that Louis, attended by a multitude of Saracens who watched his movements in silence, was approaching. Immediately the Genoese galley moved towards the shore, and Louis, having been joined by the Count of Anjou and the Lord of Joinville, stepped on board, while the other knights and nobles hastened to embark in the vessels that lay in wait for them. As soon as the king was on board, Bisset made a signal; and, as he did so, eighty archers with their crossbows strung appeared on deck so suddenly that the crowd of Saracens who had been pressing forward immediately dispersed in alarm, and the galley moved from the shore. Ere long, the Count of Poictiers, who had remained as a hostage in Damietta till the ransom of the Crusaders was paid, came on board; and, all being now in readiness for leaving the place where he had experienced so many misfortunes and so much misery, the saint-king made a sign to the mariners, the sails were given to the wind, and the fleet of the armed pilgrims—the wreck of a brilliant army—glided away towards Syria. But thousands of the survivors still remained in captivity, and, albeit Louis was conscientiously bent on ransoming them, their prospect was gloomy, and the thought of their unhappy plight clouded the saint-king's brow.
And sad was the heart of Walter Espec, as he recalled the day when he landed at Damietta side by side with Guy Muschamp; and for the hundredth time asked himself mournfully whether his brother-in-arms had died for his faith, or whether a worse fate had befallen him.
But why linger on the Egyptian shore amid scenes suggestive of reminiscences so melancholy and so dismal—reminiscences of misfortunes and calamities and losses not to be repaired? Let us on to the Syrian coast, and gladden our eyes with a sight of the white walls of Acre, washed by the blue waters of the Mediterranean.