The Boy's Book of Heroes

by Helena Peake

Early the next morning, which was Sunday, the king was giving orders for the siege of Damietta, when two Christian captives came to the camp and told him that the city was deserted. The king could scarcely credit their words, and sent one of his knights to the spot to see if they were really true. The knight returned with the same account; the Saracens had gone back to Damietta in great distress the evening before, and on their arrival had heard that the Sultan was dead.

The rumour struck dismay into the heart of Facardin, and he only waited to put the Christian slaves who were in the city to death, and to burn the bazaars where the provisions were sold, and then he went out at the gates the same night with his army and the garrison; old men and women, children and sick persons following in the rear of the craven-hearted troops, until by daylight the whole city was deserted.

Damietta was now open to the Christians; they had only to cross the bridge of boats and enter its gates. The king in his thankfulness thought that he ought not to enter the city as a triumphant warrior, but humbly, and clad as a pilgrim; and he walked thither barefoot, followed by the King of Cyprus, who had joined the crusade, the patriarch of Jerusalem, the legate, and all the bishops and priests who had accompanied the army. A mosque, where the Saracens had worshipped, was hastily converted into a Christian church, and a solemn chant of thanksgiving ascended from its altar. The crusaders had indeed reason to be thankful because Damietta was so strong a place, protected by a double wall on the side of the Nile, and by a triple one on the side of the flat country. The king determined to remain there until the autumn, and thus avoid marching in the great heat, and the danger which his army would be exposed to from the rising of the Nile, for the river begins to rise in the month of June, and mounts higher and higher until September, overflowing the land along its course so that it looks like a great marsh, and the villages and trees appear like islands above the water. By November the fields are dry again and covered with a rich brown slime, and the people then begin to sow their corn. The soil being so fertile, in the winter months the valley of the Nile presents the appearance of a beautiful garden; indeed, the natives are obliged sometimes to mix sand with the loam, or the fruits and vegetables would grow and ripen too quickly.

When the water had risen to a certain height, the Saracens used to open their dykes with great solemnity and let it flow over the land; and it was remembered with sadness in the Christian camp how they had used it for the destruction of the crusading army in the enterprise which had failed only a few years before.

The queen and her sister, with their ladies in attendance, were lodged in one of the palaces in the city, and the pilgrims who had come in the hope of reaching Jerusalem in another; but the king remained in his tent outside with the army.

The crusaders soon began to suffer from the intense heat of the climate, and the flies and noxious insects which infested the camp.

The report of the sultan's death had been false. Saleh was still living, but almost at his last gasp; and finding he could not dictate to the King of France the hour when a battle should take place between them, he devised a sure method of annoyance by offering a reward of a besant of gold for every head of a Christian which should be brought to him. The Arabs or Bedouins undertook to perform this service. Clad only in the skins of wild beasts, they would suddenly appear in the camp, and vanish on their swift-footed horses as soon as they were seen. On dark nights they used to put their ear to the ground, as the Arabs do to this day, and listen if the night watch had gone its rounds before they began their dread work; and as there were always people sleeping on the outskirts of the camp, who had gone out in search of prey, scarcely a night passed but some heads were missing at daybreak. The king, to mislead them, ordered the night watch to be made by foot soldiers instead of horsemen, but it did not prevent the maurauders from coming, and at last the crusaders had to dig a deep trench all round the camp as a surer means of keeping them away.

Louis was anxiously awaiting the arrival of his brother Alphonse, Count of Poitou, Prince John being left in France to assist the queen-mother in the cares of the government. The Count came at last, bringing with him the wife of Robert of Artois. The time was wearing on, and a council was held to determine which way they should next proceed. Robert, who was as zealous in the crusade as Louis himself, but who had not his brother's patience and calmness of mind, strongly advised that they should pursue the road to Cairo, or Babylon, as it was then called, and so aim a blow at the whole dominion of the Sultan in Egypt. The king yielded to his wishes, and leaving the queen and the princesses in the city, with a sufficient number of guards to protect them, he set out from Damietta, although he was in weak health from the effects of the climate. The army crossed the bridge of boats, but it could only go slowly along; there were so many things, such as engines, arms, harness, and provisions, to be transported. The crusaders imagined that they were going to Babylon, the great city of the East, on the banks of the Euphrates; but the city they were approaching was only so named by some settlers from the Eastern Babylon, and was what is now called "Old Cairo," although in those days it was almost as great a place as Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt. They were much astonished at the abundant vegetation on the shores of the Nile, and the treasures to be found even in its waters; for the Sire de Joinville tells us how the country people used to throw their nets into the river at evening, and take them up in the morning filled with cinnamon, aloes, ginger, rhubarb, and things of a like nature; the common belief being that these riches dropped from the trees in the garden of paradise, and were wafted up the river to their feet!

The Egyptian fleet was stationed at Massoura, a city nearly a third of the way between Damietta and Cairo. The sultan was now dead, but his widow would not let it be known until her son could arrive to take the government into his hands, for fear that the people should get discouraged.

The crusaders had not gone far from Damietta, when they found their passage barred by the Thanis, a branch of the Nile, the opposite shore of which was guarded by a body of five hundred Saracen horsemen. The Thanis was the river they had to cross; it was deep near its steep shores; there was no bridge, neither did they know of a ford, so they encamped on the ground which formed the extremity of the angle between the two rivers, only separated from the town of Massourah by the stream and a part of the plain. Their situation soon became very dangerous, because the Saracens were constantly attacking their side which was unprotected by the waters: the machines of the enemy, too, were better than their own, and poured upon them a continual volley of stones, darts, javelins, arrows, and heavy pieces of wood. Then at night the Saracens would throw upon them their terrible Greek fire, which appeared with a loud hissing noise, "like a fiery dragon flying through the air," and rendered the camp as light as day. The Saracens were more skilful in the art of making fireworks than the Europeans, and always employed them in warfare. The basis of the Greek fire was naphtha, a clear, thin mineral fluid, which is very inflammable, and burns with much smoke. When it came, the Christians would throw themselves down on the ground and hide their faces, and the king, whenever he heard it explode in the night, would rise in his bed and say, "Blessed Lord God, save my people!" and every night he would send round the camp to inquire who had been injured by it. Sometimes it was put out with vinegar and sand, but it usually occasioned great harm, not only to the people in the camp, but also to the machines.