Among the few christian warriors who escaped from this terrible encounter, was the Grand Master of the Hospital; he clove his way from the field of battle, and reached Ascalon in safety, but died of his wounds the day after his arrival. The multitude of captives was enormous, cords could not be found to bind them, the tent-ropes were all used for the purpose, but were insufficient, and the Arabian writers tell us that, on seeing the dead, one would have thought that there could be no prisoners, and on seeing the prisoners, that there could be no dead. As soon as the battle was over, Saladin proceeded to a tent, whither, in obedience to his commands, the king of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of the Temple, and Reginald de Chatillon, had been conducted. This last nobleman had greatly distinguished himself in various daring expeditions against the caravans of pilgrims travelling to Mecca, and had become on that account particularly obnoxious to the pious Saladin. The sultan, on entering the tent, ordered a bowl of sherbet, the sacred pledge amongst the Arabs of hospitality and security, to be presented to the fallen monarch of Jerusalem, and to the Grand Master of the Temple; but when Reginald de Chatillon would have drunk thereof, Saladin prevented him, and reproaching the christian nobleman with perfidy and impiety, he commanded him instantly to acknowledge the prophet whom he had blasphemed, or be prepared to meet the death he had so often deserved. On Reginald’s refusal, Saladin struck him with his scimitar, and he was immediately despatched by the guards.[194]
Bohadin, Saladin’s friend and secretary, an eye-witness of the scene, gives the following account of it: “Then Saladin told the interpreter to say thus to the king, ‘It is thou, not I, who givest drink to this man!’ Then the sultan sat down at the entrance of the tent, and they brought Prince Reginald before him, and after refreshing the man’s memory, Saladin said to him, ‘Now then, I myself will act the part of the defender of Mohammed!’ He then offered the man the Mohammedan faith, but he refused it; then the king struck him on the shoulder with a drawn scimitar, which was a hint to those that were present to do for him; so they sent his soul to hell, and cast out his body before the tent-door!”[195]
Two days afterwards Saladin proceeded in cold blood to enact the grand concluding tragedy. The warlike monks of the Temple and of the Hospital, the bravest and most zealous defenders of the christian faith, were, of all the warriors of the cross, the most obnoxious to zealous Mussulmen, and it was determined that death or conversion to Mahometanism should be the portion of every captive of either order, excepting the Grand Master of the Temple, for whom it was expected a heavy ransom would be given. Accordingly, on the christian Sabbath, at the hour of sunset, the appointed time of prayer, the Moslems were drawn up in battle array under their respective leaders. The Mamlook emirs stood in two ranks clothed in yellow, and, at the sound of the holy trumpet, all the captive knights of the Temple and of the Hospital were led on to the eminence above Tiberias, in full view of the beautiful lake of Gennesareth, whose bold and mountainous shores had been the scene of so many of their Saviour’s miracles. There, as the last rays of the sun were fading away from the mountain tops, they were called upon to deny him who had been crucified, to choose God for their Lord, Islam for their faith, Mecca for their temple, the Moslems for their brethren, and Mahomet for their prophet. To a man they refused, and were all decapitated in the presence of Saladin by the devout zealots of his army, and the doctors and expounders of the law. An oriental historian, who was present, says that Saladin sat with a smiling countenance viewing the execution, and that some of the executioners cut off the heads with a degree of dexterity that excited great applause.[196] “Oh,” says Omad’eddin Muhammed, “how beautiful an ornament is the blood of the infidels sprinkled over the followers of the faith and the true religion!”
If the Mussulmen displayed a becoming zeal in the decapitation and annihilation of the infidel Templars, these last manifested a no less praiseworthy eagerness for martyrdom by the swords of the unbelieving Moslems. The Knight Templar, Brother Nicolas, strove vigorously, we are told, with his companions to be the first to suffer, and with great difficulty accomplished his purpose.[197] It was believed by the Christians, in accordance with the superstitious ideas of those times, that heaven testified its approbation by a visible sign, and that for three nights, during which the bodies of the Templars remained unburied on the field, celestial rays of light played around the corpses of those holy martyrs.[198]
The government of the order of the Temple, in consequence of the captivity of the Grand Master, devolved upon the Grand Preceptor of the kingdom of Jerusalem, who addressed letters to all the brethren in the West, imploring instant aid and assistance. One of these letters was duly received by Brother Geoffrey, Master of the Temple at London, as follows:—
“Brother Terric, Grand Preceptor of the poor house of the Temple, and every poor brother, and the whole convent, now, alas! almost annihilated, to all the preceptors and brothers of the Temple to whom these letters may come, salvation through him to whom our fervent aspirations are addressed, through him who causeth the sun and the moon to reign marvellous.”
“The many and great calamities wherewith the anger of God, excited by our manifold sins, hath just now permitted us to be afflicted, we cannot for grief unfold to you, neither by letters nor by our sobbing speech. The infidel chiefs having collected together a vast number of their people, fiercely invaded our christian territories, and we, assembling our battalions, hastened to Tiberias to arrest their march. The enemy having hemmed us in among barren rocks, fiercely attacked us; the holy cross and the king himself fell into the hands of the infidels, the whole army was cut to pieces, two hundred and thirty of our knights were beheaded, without reckoning the sixty who were killed on the 1st of May. The Lord Reginald of Sidon, the Lord Ballovius, and we ourselves, escaped with vast difficulty from that miserable field. The Pagans, drunk with the blood of our Christians, then marched with their whole army against the city of Acre, and took it by storm. The city of Tyre is at present fiercely besieged, and neither by night nor by day do the infidels discontinue their furious assaults. So great is the multitude of them, that they cover like ants the whole face of the country from Tyre to Jerusalem, and even unto Gaza. The holy city of Jerusalem, Ascalon, and Tyre, and Beyrout, are alone left to us and to the christian cause, and the garrisons and the chief inhabitants of these places, having perished in the battle of Tiberias, we have no hope of retaining them without succour from heaven and instant assistance from yourselves.”[199]
Saladin, on the other hand, sent triumphant letters to the caliph. “God and his angels,” says he, “have mercifully succoured Islam. The infidels have been sent to feed the fires of hell! The cross is fallen into our hands, around which they fluttered like the moth round a light; under whose shadow they assembled, in which they boldly trusted as in a wall; the cross, the centre and leader of their pride, their superstition, and their tyranny.”...[200]
After the conquest of between thirty and forty cities and castles, many of which belonged to the order of the Temple, Saladin laid siege to the holy city. On the 20th of September the Mussulman army encamped on the west of the town, and extended itself from the tower of David to the gate of St. Stephen. The Temple could no longer furnish its brave warriors for the defence of the holy sanctuary of the Christians; two miserable knights, with a few serving brethren, alone remained in its now silent halls and deserted courts.
After a siege of fourteen days, a breach was effected in the walls, and ten banners of the prophet waved in triumph on the ramparts. In the morning a barefoot procession of the queen, the women, and the monks and priests, was made to the holy sepulchre, to implore the Son of God to save his tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. The females, as a mark of humility and distress, cut off their hair and cast it to the winds; and the ladies of Jerusalem made their daughters do penance by standing up to their necks in tubs of cold water placed upon Mount Calvary. But it availed nought; “for our Lord Jesus Christ,” says a Syrian Frank, “would not listen to any prayer that they made; for the filth, the luxury, and the adultery which prevailed in the city, did not suffer prayer or supplication to ascend before God.”[201]