The Sultan was surprised and annoyed. He threatened to put the King to the torture, or send him to the Grand Khalif of Bagdad, who would keep him in prison for the rest of his life. 'I am your prisoner,' said Louis; 'you can do with me as you will.'

'We are greatly astonished,' said the Mussulman. 'You say that you are our prisoner, and we had indeed thought so; but you treat us as if we were held captives by you.' The Sultan understood that he had to deal with a man of indomitable will, and the negotiations were therefore restricted to arrangements for the ransom and the surrender of Damietta. Louis was asked 500,000 livres [Footnote 26] (about £405,280 of our money) as the price of his liberty. 'I will gladly pay 500,000 livres as the ransom of my followers,' said he, 'and I will restore Damietta in return for my own liberty, for I am not a man who can be redeemed with gold.'

[Footnote 26: It is probable that the livre spoken of is the livre Tournois, and, according to M. de Wailly, this would be a sum of about 10,132,000 francs in modern French money.]

'By my faith,' said the Sultan, when he heard this, 'the Frank is a fine fellow not to higgle over such a sum of money. Go back, and tell him that I will give him 100,000 livres to help him pay the ransom.'

The negotiations were concluded on this basis: victors and vanquished left Mansourah, and travelling some by land and others down the river Nile, they arrived within a few leagues of Damietta. There, for the first time, the King and the Sultan had an interview; they decided on the manner in which the convention should be carried out, and appointed the 7th of May for the surrender of Damietta.

But on the 2d of May there was a great tumult in the Mussulman camp. Hurried movements and confused cries indicated some serious outbreak; Louis and his nobles waited anxiously, not knowing what was going on, or what the result would be to themselves. Suddenly several Mussulmans, Emirs of the Mamelukes, entered the King's tent, sword in hand, with an excited but not threatening aspect: they had just killed the Sultan Malek-Moaddam; he had incensed them, and they had been plotting against him for a long time.

'Fear nothing,' they said to Louis, with great deference, 'and, gentlemen, do not be alarmed. You need not be astonished at what has just taken place; there was no help for it. Fulfil your part of the treaty that has been made, and you shall soon be free.'

Then one of the Mameluke conspirators, Faress-Eddin-Octaï, who had just helped to kill the Sultan with his own hands, and to tear out his heart, entered the tent, sword in hand: 'What will you give me?' he said to the King, 'I have killed your enemy, who would have put you to death if he had lived;' and he then abruptly demanded that Louis should make him a knight. It was a very honourable title in the eyes of Orientals, and Saladin himself had been willing to receive it at the hands of one of his Christian prisoners. Louis answered nothing; several Crusaders around him urged him to gratify the wish of the Emir, with whom the decision of their fate now rested.