f Caesarea and Jaffa were added to the fragments of the kingdom of
Lusignan. A march of one hundred miles from Acre to Ascalon was a great
and perpetual battle of eleven days. In the disorder of his troops,
Saladin remained on the field with seventeen guards, without lowering
his standard, or suspending the sound of his brazen kettle-drum: he
again rallied and renewed the charge; and his preachers or heralds
called aloud on the _unitarians_, manfully to stand up against
the Christian idolaters. But the progress of these idolaters was
irresistible; and it was only by demolishing the walls and buildings of
Ascalon, that the sultan could prevent them from occupying an important
fortress on the confines of Egypt. During a severe winter, the armies
slept; but in the spring, the Franks advanced within a day's march
of Jerusalem, under the leading standard of the English king; and
his active spirit intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of seven thousand
camels. Saladin [75] had fixed his station in the holy city; but the
city was struck with consternation and discord: he fasted; he prayed;
he preached; he offered to share the dangers of the siege; but his
Mamalukes, who remembered the fate of their companions at Acre, pressed
the sultan with loyal or seditious clamors, to reserve _his_ person and
_their_ courage for the future defence of the religion and empire.
[76] The Moslems were delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed, the
miraculous, retreat of the Christians; [77] and the laurels of Richard
were blasted by the prudence, or envy, of his companions. The hero,
ascending a hill, and veiling his face, exclaimed with an indignant
voice, "Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy to view, the
sepulchre of Christ!" After his return to Acre, on the news that Jaffa
was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with some merchant vessels, and
leaped foremost on the beach: the castle was relieved by his presence;
and sixty thousand Turks and Saracens fled before his arms. The
discovery of his weakness, provoked them to return in the morning; and
they found him carelessly encamped before the gates with only seventeen
knights and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, he
sustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his enemies,
that the king of England, grasping his lance, rode furiously along their
front, from the right to the left wing, without meeting an adversary who
dared to encounter his career. [78] A