12 SIEGE AND BATTLE OF JAFFA. 



Christian life had been spared ; old, young, sick, 

 wounded, women and children were slaughtered, and 

 all together piled ni pronnscuous heaps : even the 

 Sultan was incapable of checking the licentious fury 

 of his soldiers, and we are assured by the Arabian 

 winters that several efforts to that effect had been 

 made by the Mamelukes of his guard. Meantime, the 

 same traitors who in the Christian circles whispered 

 the defection of the King, sent, by means of an inter- 

 mediate agent, letters to inform Saladin of the real 

 intentions of Richard. He also knew the man he had 

 to contend with sufficiently not to become uneasy at 

 the prospect of his arrival ; but his forces were in such 

 wild disorder that they could not be brought to act un- 

 less by using severity, and then only on the next day : 

 he thought it however so important to lose no time in 

 seeming the surrender of the Citadel, that Boha-eddin 

 himself was sent before day-break to offer terms, and 

 he accordingly agreed to receive all those to composi- 

 tion who could pay a few bezants for ransom. By this 

 time the out-posts on the hills of the coast had sent in 

 reports that a fleet had been seen on the horizon at 

 sun-set, coming down along the shores. Boha-eddin, 

 informed of the circumstance, urged the instant execu- 

 tion of the capitulation, but, he says, the licentiousness 

 of the plunderers rendered it impossible to secure the 

 ^Jives of the prisoners, until force had been used to 

 restore order. In this, however, the Cadi's explana- 

 tion glosses over that several were really murdered as 

 they came out of the gate : he states that forty-nine, 

 including women, children, and horses, had already 

 passed out ; but only seven, say the Christian writers, 

 had surrendered, and had been instantly beheaded, and 

 they urge that it was the accidental discovery of this 

 barbarity which caused the rest to shut the postern and 

 retreat to the innermost recesses of the castle, in hopes 

 of prolonging their existence at least a few moments 

 more ; but by this time it was broad day, and the des- 

 pairing Christians discovered not a single or a couple 

 of vessels, as had been at first reported, but a fleet of 



