After a while there was a treating for peace between the King and the Saracens; and for a while it seemed as if they might come to an agreement, and this not without advantage to the King.  But the matter came to naught, because the Saracens would have the King himself as a hostage for the due performance of the treaty.  The Christians would have given the King’s brothers, and these were willing to go; but the King they could not give.  “It would be better,” said one of the bravest knights in the army, and in this matter he spake the mind of all, “that we should all be taken captive or slain, than that we should leave the King in pledge.”

The King, seeing that the condition of the army still grew from bad to worse, and that if they tarried they would all be dead men, commanded that they should make their way into the town of Damietta.  And this the army began to do the very next night.  Now the first thing to be cared for was the taking of the sick, of whom there was a great multitude, on board the ships.  But while this was being done, the Saracens entered the camp on the other side.  When the sailors who were busy in embarking the sick saw this, they loosed the cables by which they were moored to the shore, and made as if they would fly.  Now the King was on the bank of the river, and there was a galley in waiting for him, whereon, if he had been so minded, he might easily have escaped.  Nor could he have been blamed therefor, because he was afflicted with the dysentery that prevailed in the camp.  But this he would not do; “Nay,” he said, “I will stay with my people.”  But when there was now no hope of safety, one of his officers took him, mounted as he was on a pony, to a village hard by, defending him all the way from such as chanced to fall in with him—­but none knew that he was the King.  When he was come to the village they took him into a house that there was, and laid him down almost dead.  A good woman of Paris that was there took his head upon her lap, and there was no one but thought that he would die before nightfall.  Then one of the nobles coming in asked the King whether he should not go to the chief of the Saracens, and see whether a treaty might not yet be made on such terms as they would.  The King said yes; so he went.  Now there was a company of the Saracens round the house, whither by this time not a few of the Christians had assembled.  And one of the King’s officers cried-whether from fear or with traitorous intent cannot be said—­“Sir knights, surrender yourselves!  The King will have it so; if you do not, the King will perish.”  So the knights gave up their swords, and the Saracens took them as prisoners.  When the chief of the Saracens, with whom the noble aforesaid was talking, saw them, he said, “There can be no talk of truce and agreement with these men; they are prisoners.”

And now the question was not of a treaty but a ransom.  About this there was no little debate between the Sultan and the King.  First the Sultan required that the King should surrender to him the castles of the Knights Templars and of the Hospitallers of St. John.  “Nay,” said the King, “that I cannot do, for they are not mine to give.”  This answer greatly provoked the Sultan, and he threatened to put the King to the torture, to which the King answered this only, that he was a prisoner in their hands, and that they could do with him as they would.