The old marquis of Montferrat, the father of Conrad, who had left his peaceful states to visit the Holy Land, was present at the battle of Tiberias. Made prisoner by the Mussulmans, he languished in the prisons of Damascus, until his children might be able to deliver him or purchase his liberty.
Saladin sent for him to his army, and promised the brave Conrad to restore his father, and grant him rich possessions in Syria, if he would open the gates of Tyre to him. He threatened at the same time to place the old marquis before the front rank of the Saracens, and expose him to all the arrows of the besieged. Conrad haughtily replied that he despised the gifts of infidels, and that the life of his father was less dear to him than the cause of the Christians. He added that nothing should stop his exertions, and that if the Saracens were so barbarous as to sacrifice an old man who had surrendered himself upon the word of Saladin, he should take glory from being descended from a martyr. After this reply the Saracens renewed their attacks, and the Tyrians continued to defend themselves bravely. The Hospitallers, the Templars, and the bravest of the warriors that were still in Palestine, repaired to Tyre to take part in this glorious defence. Among the Franks who distinguished themselves by their valour, no one was more remarkable than a Spanish gentleman, known in history by the name of The Green Knight. Alone, say the old chronicles, he repulsed and dispersed whole battalions of the enemy; he fought several times in single combat, always overcoming the most intrepid of the Mussulmans, and creating in Saladin the strongest admiration for his courage and his feats of arms.
The city did not contain a single citizen that was not an active combatant; the children even were so many soldiers, and the women animated the warriors by their presence and their applause. On board the ships, under the walls, battles were continually fought; and the Saracens, on all occasions, again met with the Christian heroes that had so often inspired them with fear.
Saladin, despairing of taking Tyre, resolved to raise the siege, and attack Tripoli; but was not more successful in this new enterprise. William, king of Sicily, upon being informed of the disasters in Palestine, sent assistance to the Christians. Admiral Margarit, whose talents and victories had procured for him the surname of King of the Sea and the New Neptune, arrived on the coast of Syria with fifty galleys, three hundred knights, and five hundred foot-soldiers. The Sicilian warriors hastened to the defence of Tripoli, and, commanded by the Green Knight, who had so eminently distinguished himself at the siege of Tyre, forced Saladin to abandon his undertaking.
The city and country of Tripoli, since the death of Raymond, had belonged to Bohemond, prince of Antioch. Saladin, exasperated by his double disappointment, laid waste the banks of the Orontes, and forced Bohemond to purchase a truce of eight months. The Mussulmans then took possession of Tortosa and some castles built on the heights of Libanus. The fortress of Carac, from which had issued the war so fatal to the Christians, defended itself during a whole year against a Mussulman army. The besieged, destitute of all succour, and a prey to every kind of evil and privation, carried resignation and bravery to perfect heroism. “Before they would surrender,” says the continuator of William of Tyre, “they sold their wives and children to the Saracens, and there remained not an animal in the castle of which they could make food.” They were at length, however, forced to yield to Saladin; the sultan granting them their lives and their liberty, and restoring to them their wives and children, whom a barbarous heroism had condemned to slavery.
Throughout his conquests, Saladin still kept Guy de Lusignan in chains; but when he became master of Carac and the greater part of Palestine, he at length set the unfortunate king of Jerusalem free, after having made him swear upon the Gospel to renounce his kingdom for ever, and to return to Europe. This promise, extorted by force, could not be regarded as binding in a war in which fanaticism set at nought the power of an oath, on the one side or the other. Saladin himself never entertained an idea that Guy would keep his word; and if he consented to liberate him, it was doubtless from the fear that a more able prince would be chosen in his place, and from the hope that his presence would bring discord among the Christians.
Guy was scarcely released from captivity, when he made his bishops annul the oath he had taken, and sought earnestly for an opportunity of reconstructing a throne upon which fortune had for a moment placed him. He presented himself in vain before Tyre; that city had given itself up to Conrad, and would not acknowledge as king a prince who had not been able to defend his own states. The king of Jerusalem wandered for a long time about his own kingdom, accompanied by a few faithful attendants, and at length resolved to undertake some enterprise that should draw attention, and unite under his banners the warriors who flocked from all parts of Europe to the assistance of the Holy Land.
Guy laid siege to Ptolemaïs, which had surrendered to Saladin a few days after the battle of Tiberias. This city, which historians call by turns Acca, Accon, and Acre, was built at the western extremity of a vast plain. The Mediterranean bathed its walls; it attracted, by the commodiousness of its port, the navigators of Europe and Asia, and deserved to reign over the seas with the city of Tyre, which was situated not far from it. Deep ditches surrounded the walls on the land side; and, at equal distances, formidable towers had been built, among which was conspicuous The Cursed Tower, which dominated over the city and the plain. A dyke, built of stone, closed the part towards the south, terminated by a fortress, erected upon an isolated rock in the midst of the waves.
The plain of Ptolemaïs is bounded on the north by Mount Saron, which the Latins called Scala Tyrorum,—the ladders of the Tyrians; on the east by the mountains of Galilee; and on the south by Mount Carmel, which stretches into the sea. The plain is intersected towards the city by two hills,—the Turon, or the Mountain of the Worshipper, and the Mahameria, or the Hill of the Prophet. Several rivers or torrents descend from Mount Saron or from the mountains of Galilee, and flow impetuously into the sea at a short distance from Ptolemaïs. The most considerable of these torrents is the Belus, which discharges itself to the south of the city. In the rainy season it overflows its banks, and forms around it marshes covered with rushes and reeds. The other torrents, whose beds in summer present nothing but an arid sand, overflow in winter like the Belus. During several months of the year a great part of the plain of Ptolemaïs is under water; and when summer comes to dry the long-flooded fields, the exhalations corrupt the air and spread around the germs of epidemic diseases.
Nevertheless, the plains of Ptolemaïs were fertile and smiling: groves and gardens covered the country near the city; some villages arose on the declivities of the mountains, and houses of pleasure dotted the hills. Religious and profane traditions had bestowed names upon several spots in the neighbourhood. A little hill reminded travellers of the tomb of Memnon; and upon Mount Carmel was pointed out the retreat of Eli and Pythagoras. Such were the places that were soon to become the theatre of a sanguinary war, and see assembled and fighting the armies of Europe and Asia.