While detained before the walls of Arkas they were met by an embassy from the caliph of Egypt, composed of the same persons that had previously visited the camp at Antioch. They narrated how they had been thrown into prison because of the failure of their former mission, when their master heard of the straits of the Christians; and how they had been liberated and sent back upon his hearing of the subsequent triumph of the Latins. They announced that Jerusalem had recently come into the hands of the Egyptians, and as its new possessors, proposed peace and privilege of pilgrimage to all who should enter the city without arms. They offered splendid bribes to the chieftains in person; but these worthies rejected the proposal.
The fame of the Christians’ victory at Antioch brought new crusaders from Europe, among them Edgar Atheling, the last Saxon claimant of the crown of England against its possession by William the Conqueror.
On the way southward the hosts harvested the groves of olives and oranges, and the waving fields which have always enriched the western slopes of Lebanon. They discovered a rare plant, juicy and sweet, refreshing like wine and nourishing as corn. The inhabitants called it zucra. The later crusaders introduced it as the sugar-cane into Italy. Proceeding along or near to the coast, that they might be able to receive succor from over the sea, they traversed the plain of Berytus (Beirut) and the territory of Tyre and Sidon. Many pilgrims, whose zealotry had led them to settle in the Holy Land notwithstanding its hostile possession, hailed their brethren with benedictions and provisions. On the bank of the river Eleuctra their camp was invaded by hosts of serpents, whose bite was followed by violent and often mortal pains. At Ptolemaïs (Jean d’Acre) the commanding emir averted assault by pledging himself to surrender the place as soon as he should learn that the Christians had taken Jerusalem. His pretence of peaceableness was singularly exposed. A hawk was seen to fly aloft with a dove in its talons. By strange chance the lifeless bird fell amid a group of crusaders. It proved to be a carrier-pigeon, whose peculiar instinct was then unknown to Europeans. Under its wing was a letter written by the emir of Ptolemaïs to the emir of Cæsarea, containing the words: “The cursed race of Christians has just passed through my territories and will soon cross yours. Let all our chiefs be warned and prepare to crush them.” This timely revelation of the treachery of their assumed ally, coming literally down from the sky, was regarded as a special sign of Heaven’s favor.
Pressing still southward, they captured Lydda and Ramleh, on the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Here the enthusiasm of the Christians blinded their judgment. It was with difficulty that the more cautious leaders restrained the multitude from moving against Egypt, in the vain expectation of conquering not only Jerusalem, but the ancient empire of the Pharaohs, at a single swoop. The credulity as to Heaven’s favor was matched by an equal display of very earthly motives. The crusaders devised a system for dividing the spoil. Whatever leader first planted his standard upon a city, or his mark upon the door of a house, was to be regarded as its legitimate owner. This appeal to human greed led many to leave the direct march upon Jerusalem, which was but sixteen miles away, and to expend in petty conquests or robberies the ardor which for weary months had been augmenting as they approached the grand object of the crusades. A faithful multitude, however, pushed on. They took off their shoes as they realized that they were on holy ground. Tancred, with a band of three hundred, making a circuit southward by night, set the standard of the cross on the walls of Bethlehem, to signal the birth of the kingdom in the birthplace of its King.
On the morning of June 10, 1099, the sight of the Holy City broke upon the view. The shout of the host, “Deus vult! Deus vult!” rolled over the intervening hills like the “noise of many waters.” Had a host of angels filled the sky, it would have seemed to their enthusiastic souls but a fitting concomitant of their approach. The joy of the apparent accomplishment of their purpose was, however, followed by the affliction of their souls, as the most devout among them reminded the others of the spiritual significance of the scene before them. Jerusalem had witnessed the death of their Lord. For a while the soldier remembered only that he was a pilgrim; knight and pikeman knelt together and laid their faces in the dust.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM.
The Egyptian commandant of Jerusalem had not idly awaited the slow approach of its assailants. He had stored it abundantly with provisions, strengthened the walls with masonry and defensive machines, and by appeals to Moslems everywhere had completed its garrison. The suburban country was reduced to a desert, stripped of all vegetation which could furnish food for man or beast; all standing trees, and the timber in houses that might be wrought into machinery of assault, were destroyed. The wells in the valleys were filled with stones, and poison thrown into the cisterns where water had been stored.
Possibly the knowledge that the district about Jerusalem could furnish them no help led the leaders to listen to the counsel of a solitary hermit who dwelt on the Mount of Olives, and who promised in Christ’s name a successful assault if undertaken at once. It does not seem clear how an army without siege apparatus could take a place so strongly fortified. On the east the vast walls, rising from the valley of Jehoshaphat, were too lofty to tempt the most daring. Those on the south, overlooking the Kidron, were not less impregnable. The crusading army took every possibility of approach into consideration, and in imitation of Vespasian and Titus a thousand years before, stretched their lines on the north and west of the city. But only a blind faith in divine assistance could have led to the assault, even on these sides, without battering-rams or scaling-ladders. Yet at the trumpet’s call the Christians advanced. They joined their shields into a roof, which was a poor defence against the stones and boiling oil that descended upon them. Still the front ranks dug into the walls with pikes and axes, while the rear ranks of archers and slingers endeavored to drive the foe from the ramparts above. A few, finding a solitary ladder, mounted the walls, but were unable to withstand the crowd of Infidels who met them. In deep discouragement, they abandoned the assault, having learned the lesson that, even at Jerusalem, Heaven assures no enterprise which is conceived regardless of human discretion.
Events soon occurred which turned this distrust of miraculous intervention into a belief that Heaven was actually fighting against the Christians. It was a summer of fearful heat even for that land. Tasso’s description of those fiery days is as truthful as it is poetic:
“The fair flowers languish, the green turf turns brown,