The Boy Crusaders: A Story of the Days of Louis IX.

CHAPTER XXX.
ST. LOUIS IN CHAINS

WHEN King Louis was led away by the faithful Segrines, and when he was so exhausted that he had to be lifted from his steed and carried into a house, and when the Crusaders outside were in dismay and despair, Philip de Montfort entered the chamber where the saintly monarch was, and proposed to renew negotiations with the Saracens.

'Sire,' said De Montfort, 'I have just seen the emir with whom I formerly treated; and, so it be your good pleasure, I will seek him out, and demand a cessation of hostilities.'

'Go,' replied Louis; 'and, since it can no better be, promise to submit to the conditions on which the sultan formerly insisted.'

Accordingly De Montfort went; and the Saracens, still fearing their foes, and remembering that the French held Damietta, agreed to treat. A truce was, indeed, on the point of being concluded. Montfort had given the emir a ring; the emir had taken off his turban, and their hands were about to meet; when a Frenchman, named Marcel, rushed in and spoiled all.

'Seigneurs,' said he, interrupting the conference, 'noble knights of France, surrender yourselves all! The king commands you by me. Do not cause him to be put to death.'

On hearing this message, the emir withdrew his hand, returned De Montfort's ring, put on his turban, and intimated that the negotiation was at an end.

'God is powerful,' said he, 'and it is not customary to treat with beaten enemies.'

And now it was that there ensued such a scene as Minieh had never witnessed. Almost as the negotiation ended, Louis was seized, violently handled and put in chains. Both the Count of Poictiers and the Count of Anjou were at the same time made prisoners; and the bulk of the warriors accompanying the king had scarcely the choice between surrender and death; for nothing, as has been said, but their hearts' blood would satisfy the vindictive cravings of their foes; and, when the king's captivity became known, many of those who had formerly been most intrepid, remained motionless and incapable of the slightest resistance.

About the time when King Louis was put in chains, and when Bisset, the English knight, was endeavouring to escape death or rather captivity, the sultan arrived at Minieh, and, without any display of generosity for the vanquished, took measures for improving his victory to the utmost. The king and his brothers who, like himself, were bound hand and foot, were conducted in triumph to a boat of war. The oriflamme – that banner so long the pride of France – was now carried in mockery; the crosses and images, which the Crusaders had with them as symbols of their religious faith, were trampled scornfully under foot; and, with trumpets sounding and kettle-drums clashing, the royal captives were marched into Mansourah.

It was to the house of Fakreddin Ben Lokman, the secretary of the sultan, that Louis was escorted; and, on arriving there, he was given into the custody of the Eunuch Sahil. But, abandoned by fortune, and in the power of his enemies, Louis was still himself. In chains and captivity he exhibited the dignity of a king and the resignation of a Christian, and his jailers could not refrain from expressing their astonishment at the serene patience with which he bore adversity. Of all his property, he had only saved his book of psalms; and daily, while consoling himself with reciting from its pages, he was inspired with strength and resolution to bear his misfortunes, and to raise his thoughts far above the malice of his foes.

Meanwhile, at the court of the sultan, everything was not going smoothly. From the beginning, the emirs and Mamelukes had looked with envy and suspicion on the favourites brought by Touran Chah from Mesopotamia; and such feelings had not died away. Many of the favourites ere long were substituted for the ministers of the late sultan; and the emirs and Mamelukes not only complained loudly of this to Touran Chah, but reproached him bitterly for the way in which he disposed of the spoil of the Crusaders.

'How is this?' asked they; 'you are bestowing the spoils of the vanquished Franks, not on the men who have borne the burden of the war, but on men whose sole merit consists in having come from the banks of the Euphrates to the Nile.'

Now, the sultan's favourites were not unaware of the unfriendly feeling with which they were regarded by the Mameluke chiefs. Indeed, they saw all the dangers of their position, and considered it politic, under the circumstances, to reduce the influence of the emirs and Mamelukes by bringing about a treaty with the Crusaders.

'In these people,' said they to the sultan, 'you have enemies far more dangerous than the Christians. Nothing will content them but reigning in your stead. They never cease to boast of their victories, as if they alone had conquered the Franks, and as if the God of Mahomet had not sent pestilence and famine to aid you in triumphing. But hasten to terminate the war, that you may strengthen your power within; and then you will be able to reign in reality.'

As soon as Touran Chah was convinced that the emirs and Mamelukes entertained projects of ambition dangerous to his power, and that war was favourable to their designs, he resolved to show the chiefs how little he regarded their opinions; and, without even consulting them, he sent some of his favourites to the house of Lokman, and empowered them to treat with Louis.

'King,' said the ambassador, 'I come from the sultan, to inform you that he will restore you to liberty, on condition that you surrender to him the cities of Palestine now held by the Franks.'

'The cities of Palestine are not mine to give,' replied Louis, calmly; 'and I cannot pretend to dispose of them.'

'But beware of rashly refusing to submit to the sultan's terms,' said the ambassador; 'for you know not what may happen. He will send you to the caliph at Bagdad, who will imprison you for life; or he will cause you to be led throughout the East, to exhibit to all Asia a Christian king reduced to slavery.'

'I am the sultan's prisoner,' replied Louis, unmoved, 'and he can do with me what he pleases.'

On hearing this answer, the ambassadors intimated their intention of employing personal violence; and, one of them having stamped three times with his foot, the Eunuch Sahil entered, followed by the jailers, bearing that frightful instrument of torture, known as 'the bernicles.'

Now this terrible engine was made of pieces of wood pierced with holes, into which the legs of the criminal were put; and the holes were at so great a distance from each other, and could be forced to so great an extension, that the pain was about the most horrible that could be produced. Moreover, the holes being at various distances, the legs of the victim could be inserted into those that extended them to the greatest distance, and while the pain inflicted was more than flesh and blood could bear, means were, at the same time, used to break or dislocate all his small bones. It was an instrument of punishment reserved for the worst of criminals; and no torture was deemed so awful as that which it was capable of inflicting.

'What do you say to be put in this engine of punishment?' asked the ambassador, pointing significantly to the bernicles.

'I have already told you,' replied Louis, unmoved, 'that I am the sultan's prisoner, and that he can do with me as he pleases.'

In fact, the courage of Louis was proof against any danger to his own person; and he held all the menaces of his captors so cheap, that they scarcely knew how to deal with him. At length, the sultan determined to propose terms more likely to be acceptable to the saint-king, and again sent ambassadors to his prison, with the object of bringing about a treaty.

'King,' said the ambassador, 'the sultan has sent to ask how much money you will give for your ransom, besides restoring Damietta?'

'In truth,' replied Louis, 'I scarcely know what answer to make; but, if the sultan will be contented with a reasonable sum, I will write to the queen to pay it for myself and my army.'

'But wherefore write to the queen, who is but a woman?' asked the ambassador somewhat surprised.

'She is my lady and companion,' answered Louis, even at that moment mindful of the principles of chivalry; 'and it is only reasonable that her consent should be obtained.'

'Well,' said the ambassador, 'if the queen will pay a million golden bezants, the sultan will set you free.'

'However,' said Louis, with dignity, 'I must tell you that, as King of France, I cannot be redeemed by money; but a million of bezants will be paid as the ransom of my army, and Damietta given up in exchange for my own freedom.'

After some negotiations the terms were agreed to; and the sultan not only concluded the treaty joyfully, but expressed his admiration of the nobility of spirit which Louis had displayed.

'By my faith!' said Touran Chah to the ambassador, 'this Frenchman is generous and noble, seeing that he does not condescend to bargain about so large a sum of money, but instantly complies with the first demand. Go,' added the sultan, 'and tell him, from me, that I make him a present of a fifth of the sum, so that he will only have to pay four-fifths; and that I will command all the principal nobles and his great officers to be embarked in four of my largest galleys, and conducted safely to Damietta.'

It was Thursday before the Feast of Ascension; and, while the King of France, and the Crusaders were conveyed down the Nile in galleys, Touran Chah travelled by land from Mansourah, in order to receive Damietta, and perform the conditions of peace. On reaching Pharescour, however, the sultan halted to dine with his chiefs; and, while the other Crusaders lay in their galleys on the river, the king and his brethren were invited to land, and received into a pavilion, where they had an interview with the sultan, when Saturday was appointed for the payment of the golden bezants and the surrender of Damietta. But long ere Saturday a terrible tragedy was to occur, and render Pharescour memorable as the scene of a deed of violence, startling both to Asia and Europe. Already, while the sultan held his interview with the King of France and the Counts of Poictiers and Anjou, everything was prepared; and soon after Touran Chah had left Louis and his brothers shut up in the pavilion, they were roused by loud shouts of distress and a mighty tumult; and, while they breathlessly asked each other whether the French captives were being massacred or Damietta taken by storm, in rushed twenty Saracens, their swords red and reeking with blood, and spots of blood on their vestments and their faces, stamping, threatening furiously, and uttering fierce cries.

CHAPTER XXXI.
THE TRAGEDY OF PHARESCOUR

AT Pharescour, on the margin of the Nile, the Sultan of Egypt had a remarkable palace. It appears to have been constructed of wood, and covered with cloth of brilliant colours. At the entrance was a pavilion, where the emirs and chiefs were in the habit of leaving their swords, when they had audience of the sultan; and beyond this pavilion was a handsome gateway which led to the great hall where the sultan feasted; and adjoining the great hall was a tower, by which the sultan ascended to his private apartments.

Between the palace and the river was a spacious lawn, in which there was a tower, to which the sultan was wont to ascend when he wished to make observations on the surrounding country; and hard by was an alley which led towards the margin of the hill, and a summer-house formed of trellis-work and covered with Indian linen, where he frequently repaired for the purpose of bathing.

The chroniclers of the period who write of the crusade of St. Louis fully describe this palace. Indeed, the appearance of the place was strongly impressed on the memory of the Crusaders. It was there that Touran Chah, when on his way from Mansourah to Damietta, halted to receive the congratulations of the Moslem chiefs on the victory that had been achieved over the Franks; there, in their company, he celebrated his triumph by a grand banquet; and there was enacted the terrible tragedy that exposed the surviving pilgrims to new dangers and fresh trials.

By this time, indeed, the emirs and Mamelukes had become so exasperated at the elevation of the sultan's favourite courtiers that they vowed vengeance; and, in order to justify their project, they ascribed to him the most sinister designs. It was asserted that many of the emirs were doomed to die on a certain day; and that, in the midst of a nocturnal orgy, Touran Chah had cut off the tops of the flambeaux in his chamber, crying – 'Thus shall fly the heads of all the Mamelukes.' In order to avenge herself for the neglect to which she was exposed under the new reign, Chegger Edour, the sultana who had played so important a part in the last days of Melikul Salih, exerted her eloquence to stimulate the discontent; and the emirs and Mamelukes, having formed a conspiracy, only awaited a convenient opportunity to complete their projects of vengeance at a blow.

It was the day after his arrival at Pharescour, on which Touran Chah gave a banquet to the chiefs of his army; and, as it happened, the company comprised the Mamelukes and the emirs who were, or who deemed themselves, in danger. It would seem that everything went forward quietly and ceremoniously till the feast was ended, and the sultan rose to ascend to his chamber. Not a moment, however, was then lost. As soon as Touran Chah moved from table, Bibars Bendocdar, who carried the sultan's sword, struck the first blow, and instantly the others rushed furiously upon their destined victim. Touran Chah parried the blow of the Mameluke chief with his hand; but the weapon penetrated between two of his fingers and cut up his arm.

'My lords,' said he, taken by surprise; 'I make my complaint against this man, who has endeavoured to kill me.'

'Better that you should be slain than live to murder us, as you intend to do,' cried all present, with the exception of an envoy of the caliph, who had arrived from Bagdad, and appeared much terrified at the scene so suddenly presented.

Touran Chah looked round him in amazement; and, as he did so, he was seized with terror. However, the instinct of self-preservation did not desert him. With a spring he bounded between the motionless guards, escaped into the lawn, took refuge in the tower, and looking from a window demanded of the conspirators what they really wanted; but they were not in a humour to spend time in talk.

'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.'

'Make thyself a Christian, and I will make thee a knight,' said Louis, calmly.

Rather cowed than otherwise with his reception, and with the demeanour of the royal captive, Octai retired; and the French king and his brothers once more breathed with as much freedom as men could under the circumstances. But they were not long left undisturbed. Scarcely had the Mameluke aspirant for knighthood disappeared when the tent was crowded with Saracens, who brandished their sabres and threatened Louis with destruction.

'Frenchman!' cried they, addressing the king, wildly and fiercely; 'art thou ignorant of thy danger, or what may be the fate that awaits thee? Pharescour is not Mansourah, as events may convince thee yet. Here thou mayest find a tomb instead of the house of Lokman, and the two terrible angels, Munkir and Nakir, instead of the Eunuch Sahil.'

CHAPTER XXXII.
PERILS AND SUSPENSE

THE Saracen chiefs, after having dyed their sabres in the blood of the sultan, did not confine their menaces and violent demonstrations to the tent in which the captive King of France was lodged. With swords drawn and battle-axes on their shoulders, thirty of them boarded the galley where Joinville was with the Count of Brittany, Sir Baldwin d'Ebelin, and the Constable of Cyprus, and menaced them with gestures and furious imprecations.

'I asked Sir Baldwin d'Ebelin,' writes Joinville, 'what they were saying; and he, understanding Saracenic, replied that they were come to cut off our heads, and shortly after I saw a large body of our men on board confessing themselves to a monk of La Trinité, who had accompanied the Count of Flanders. I no longer thought of any sin or evil I had done, but that I was about to receive my death. In consequence, I fell on my knees at the feet of one of them, and making the sign of the cross, said "Thus died St. Agnes." The Constable of Cyprus knelt beside me, and confessed himself to me, and I gave him such absolution as god was pleased to grant me the power of bestowing. But of all the things he had said to me, when I rose up I could not remember one of them.'

'We were confined in the hold of the galleys,' continues the chronicler, 'and laid heads and heels together. We thought it had been so ordered because they were afraid of attacking us in a body, and that they would destroy us one at a time. This danger lasted the whole night. I had my feet right on the face of the Count of Brittany, whose feet, in return, were beside my face. On the morrow we were taken out of the hold, and the emirs sent to inform us that we might renew the treaties we had made with the sultan.'

'So far, all seemed well. But the danger was not yet over, as the Crusaders were destined to feel. At first the form of the oaths to be taken by the king and the emirs presented much difficulty; and, even when it was settled, the emirs in council gravely discussed the propriety of putting the French king and his barons to death. Only one of them pleaded for keeping faith; and his voice would have been drowned in the clamour, but fortunately he used an argument which appealed irresistibly to their cupidity.'

'You may put these Franks to death if you will,' said he; 'but reflect ere doing so that dead men pay no ransom.'

Nevertheless, it really seemed that after all the Crusaders were doomed; and while they were on board the galleys, and this discussion was proceeding, an incident occurred which caused them to give themselves up for lost.

'One of the emirs that were against us,' says Joinville, 'threatening we were to be slain, came to the bank of the river, and shouted out in Saracen to those who were on board our galley, and, taking off his turban, made signs, and told them they were to carry us back to Babylon. The anchors were instantly raised, and we were carried a good league up the river. This caused great grief to all of us, and many tears fell from our eyes, for we now expected nothing but death.'

And what in the meantime was taking place in Damietta?

Nothing in truth could have exceeded the anxiety which prevailed within the walls of that city, when thither were carried tidings of the assassination of the Sultan of Egypt, and of the new danger to which the King of France and the captive Crusaders were exposed.

The aspect of affairs was indeed menacing; and it was not till messengers from King Louis came to announce that the treaty was to be maintained and the city evacuated, that something like confidence was restored. On the evening of Friday, Queen Margaret, with the Countesses of Anjou, Poictiers, and Artois, and the other ladies, went on board a Genoese vessel. As night advanced, Oliver de Thermes and all the Crusaders who had garrisoned Damietta embarked on the Nile, and Geoffrey de Segrines, having brought the keys to the emirs, the Saracens took possession. Next morning at daybreak the Moslem standards were floating over tower and turret. But still King Louis was in the hands of his enemies, and still the emirs were debating whether or not they ought to put him and the companions of his captivity to death.

At the mouth of the Nile, a Genoese galley awaited the king; and, while every eye was strained towards the shore with an anxiety which was not without cause, Walter Espec and Bisset, the English knight, stood on deck in no enviable frame of mind.

'I mislike all this delay,' said Walter, more agitated than he was wont to appear. 'What if, after all, these emirs should prove false to their covenant?'

'In truth,' replied Bisset, 'it would not amaze me so much as many things that have come to pass of late; and both the king and his nobles may yet find to their cost that their hopes of freedom are dashed; for we all know the truth of the proverb as to there being so much between the cup and the lip.'

At this moment they observed the galleys, on board of which Joinville and other captive Crusaders were, move up the Nile, and each uttered an exclamation of horror.

'Now may Holy Katherine be our aid,' cried Walter, 'for our worst anticipations are like to be realised.'

'The saints forbid,' replied Bisset; 'and yet I am not so hopeful as I might be, for I have long since learned not to holloa till out of the wood.'

It was indeed a critical moment for Louis and his nobles; but in the council of the emirs the milder views ultimately prevailed, and Bisset and Walter Espec observed with delight that the galleys which had moved up the Nile were brought back towards Damietta, and that Louis, attended by a multitude of Saracens who watched his movements in silence, was approaching. Immediately the Genoese galley moved towards the shore, and Louis, having been joined by the Count of Anjou and the Lord of Joinville, stepped on board, while the other knights and nobles hastened to embark in the vessels that lay in wait for them. As soon as the king was on board, Bisset made a signal; and, as he did so, eighty archers with their crossbows strung appeared on deck so suddenly that the crowd of Saracens who had been pressing forward immediately dispersed in alarm, and the galley moved from the shore. Ere long, the Count of Poictiers, who had remained as a hostage in Damietta till the ransom of the Crusaders was paid, came on board; and, all being now in readiness for leaving the place where he had experienced so many misfortunes and so much misery, the saint-king made a sign to the mariners, the sails were given to the wind, and the fleet of the armed pilgrims – the wreck of a brilliant army – glided away towards Syria. But thousands of the survivors still remained in captivity, and, albeit Louis was conscientiously bent on ransoming them, their prospect was gloomy, and the thought of their unhappy plight clouded the saint-king's brow.

And sad was the heart of Walter Espec, as he recalled the day when he landed at Damietta side by side with Guy Muschamp; and for the hundredth time asked himself mournfully whether his brother-in-arms had died for his faith, or whether a worse fate had befallen him.

But why linger on the Egyptian shore amid scenes suggestive of reminiscences so melancholy and so dismal – reminiscences of misfortunes and calamities and losses not to be repaired? Let us on to the Syrian coast, and gladden our eyes with a sight of the white walls of Acre, washed by the blue waters of the Mediterranean.