'Come down,' cried they; 'you cannot escape us.'
'Assure me of safety, and I will willingly descend,' said the sultan.
At this stage the envoy of the caliph, having mounted his horse, came forward as if to interfere; but the conspirators menaced him with instant death if he did not return to his tent, and, still keenly bent on completing their work of murder, ordered the sultan to come down.
Touran Chah shook his head, as if declining the invitation.
'Fool,' cried the conspirators, scornfully, 'we have the means of compelling you to descend, or to meet a worse fate;' and without further parley they commenced assailing the tower with Greek fire.
The Greek fire caught the cloth and timber, and immediately the whole was in a blaze. Touran Chah could no longer hesitate. One hope remained to him, namely to rush towards the Nile, to throw himself into the water, and to take refuge on board one of the vessels that he saw anchored near the shore. Accordingly he leaped from the blazing tower, with the intention of rushing across the lawn. But the toils were upon him. A nail having caught his mantle, he, after remaining for a moment suspended, fell to the ground. Instantly sabres and swords waved over him; and he clung in a supplicating posture to Octai, one of the captains of his guard; but Octai repulsed him with contempt. Nevertheless, the conspirators hesitated; and they were still hesitating, when Bibars Bendocdar, who was never troubled either with fears or scruples, and who, indeed, had struck the first blow, made a thrust so stern that the sword remained sticking fast between the ribs of the victim. Still resisting, however, the sultan contrived to drag himself to the Nile, with a hope of reaching the galleys from which the captive Crusaders witnessed the outrage; but some of the Mamelukes followed him into the water; and close to the galley in which the Lord of Joinville was, the heir of Saladin—the last of the Eioubites—died miserably.
It was now that the Mamelukes rushed into the tent where Louis and his brothers were.
'King,' cried Octai, pointing to his bloody sword, 'Touran Chah is no more. What will you give me for having freed you from an enemy who meditated your destruction as well as ours?'
Louis vouchsafed no reply.
'What!' cried the emir, furiously presenting the point of his sword; 'know you not that I am master of your person? Make me a knight, or thou art a dead man.'