The Boy Crusaders Part 18

'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 amba.s.sador; '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 amba.s.sadors 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 amba.s.sador, 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 amba.s.sadors to his prison, with the object of bringing about a treaty.

'King,' said the amba.s.sador, '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 amba.s.sador 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 amba.s.sador, '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 n.o.bility of spirit which Louis had displayed.

'By my faith!' said Touran Chah to the amba.s.sador, 'this Frenchman is generous and n.o.ble, 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 princ.i.p.al n.o.bles 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 Sat.u.r.day was appointed for the payment of the golden bezants and the surrender of Damietta. But long ere Sat.u.r.day 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 ma.s.sacred 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 x.x.xI.

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 s.p.a.cious 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 a.s.serted 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.'

'a.s.sure 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 a.s.sailing 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 anch.o.r.ed near the sh.o.r.e. 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 x.x.xII.

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 Trinite, 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 G.o.d 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.'