[Illustration:  043.jpg window in the mausoleum of Kilawun]

After the fall of Acre, towns such as Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, and others, which were still in the hands of the Christians, offered no resistance, and were either deserted by their inhabitants or given up to the enemy.  El-Ashraf, now that he had cleared Syria of the Crusaders, turned his arms against the Mongols and their vassals.  He began with the storming of Kalat er-rum, a fortress on the Upper Euphrates in the neighbourhood of Bireh, the possession of which was important both for the defence of Northern Syria and for attacks on Armenia and Asia Minor.  In spite of many pompous declarations that this was only the beginning of greater conquests in Asia Minor and Irak, he retired as soon as the Ilkhan Kaikhatu sent a strong detachment of troops against him.  Later on he threatened the Prince of Armenia-Minor with war, and obliged him to hand over certain border towns.  He also exchanged some threatening letters with Kaikhatu.  But neither reigned long enough to make these threats good, for Kaikhatu was soon after dethroned by Baidu, and Baidu in his turn by Gazan (1295), after many civil wars which had continually hindered him from carrying on a foreign war.  El-Ashraf was murdered in 1294, whilst hunting, by the regent Baidara, whom he had threatend to turn out of his office.  Kara Sonkor, Lajin, El-Mansuri, and some of the other emirs had conspired with Baidara in the hope that, when once the deed was accomplished, all the chiefs in the kingdom would applaud their action, since El-Ashraf had slain and imprisoned many influential emirs, and was generally denounced as an irreligious man, who transgressed not only against the laws of Islam, but also against those of nature.  Baidara, however, immediately proceeded to mount the throne, and a strong party, with the Emir Ketboga at its head, was formed against him.  Ketboga called upon El-Ashraf’s Mamluks to take vengeance, pursued the rebels, and killed Baidara.  He then returned to Cairo, and, after long negotiations with the governor of the capital, Muhammed, a younger brother of El-Ashraf, was proclaimed sultan, with the title of El-Malik en-Nasir.

Muhammed en-Nasir occupies such an important place in the history of these times that the other Moslem princes may easily be grouped around him.  He was only nine years old when he was summoned to be ruler of the kingdom of the Mamluks.  Naturally he was the sultan only in name, and the real power lay in the hands of Ketboga and Vizier Shujai.  These two lived in perfect harmony so long as they were merely occupied with the pursuit of their rivals,—­not only the friends and followers of El-Ashraf’s murderer, but also the innocent ex-vizier of El-Ashraf, because he had treated them with contempt and was in possession of riches for which they were greedy.  He shared the fate of the king’s assassins, for, in spite of the intercession of the ladies of