generous language, they told him that for their lands, their houses, and their goods they cared nothing.  Their prayer was that he would restore to them their fathers, their husbands, and their brothers.  Saladin granted their request, added his alms for those who had been left orphans or destitute by the war, and remitted a portion of the ransom appointed for the poor.  In this way the number of those who remained unredeemed was reduced to eleven or twelve thousand; and Saracenic slavery, although degrading, was seldom as cruel as the slavery which had but as yesterday been extinguished by the most fearful of recent wars.

The entry of Saladin into Jerusalem was accompanied by the usual signs of triumph.  Amid the waving of banners and the clash of martial music he advanced to the Mosque of Omar, on the summit of which the Christian cross still flashed in the clear air.  A wail of agony burst from the Christians who were present as this emblem was hurled down to the earth and dragged through the mire.  For two days it underwent this indignity, while the mosque was purified from its defilements by streams of rosewater, and dedicated afresh to the worship of the one God adored by Islam.  The crosses, the relics, the sacred vessels of the Christian sanctuaries, which had been carefully stowed away in four chests, had fallen into the hands of the conquerors, and it was the wish of Saladin to send them to the Caliph of the Prophet as the proudest trophies of his victory.  Even this wish he generously consented to forego.  The chests were left in the keeping of the patriarch, and the price put upon them, fifty-two thousand golden bezants, was paid by Richard of England.

Conrad still held out in Tyre, nor was he induced to surrender even when Saladin himself assailed its walls.  The siege was raised; and the next personage to appear before its gates was Guy of Lusignan, who, having regained his freedom, insisted on being admitted as lord of the city.  The grand master of the Templars seconded his demand.  The reply was short and decisive.  The people would own no other master than the gallant knight who had so nobly defended them.  But the escape of Tyre had no effect on the general issue of the war.  Town after town submitted to Saladin; and the long series of his triumphs closed when he entered the gates of Antioch.

Eighty-eight years had passed away since the crusaders of Godfrey and Tancred had stood triumphant on the walls of the Holy City; and during all those years the Latin kingdom had seldom rested from wars and forays, from feuds and dissensions of every kind.  From the first it displayed no characteristics which could give it any stability; from the first it exhibited signs which foreboded its certain downfall.

It sanctified treachery, for it rested on the principle that no faith was to be kept with the unbeliever; and the sowing of wind by the constant breach of solemn compact made them reap the whirlwind.  A right of pasturage round Paneas had been granted to the Mahometans by Baldwin III.  When the ground was covered with their sheep the Christian troops burst in, murdered the shepherds, and drove away their flocks—­not with the sanction, we may hope, of the most high-minded of the Latin kings of Jerusalem.