a few leagues of Damietta, the surrender of
which was fixed for the 7th of May. But five days previously a tragic
event took place. Several emirs of the Mamelukes suddenly entered
Louis's tent. They had just slain the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, against whom
they had for some time been conspiring. "Fear nought, sir," said they to
the king; "this was to be. Do what concerns you in respect of the
stipulated conditions, and you shall be free." Of these emirs one, who
had slain the sultan with his own hand, asked the king, brusquely, "What
wilt thou give me? I have slain thine enemy, who would have put thee to
death, had he lived;" and he asked to be made knight. Louis answered not
a word. Some of the crusaders present urged him to satisfy the desire of
the emir, who had in his power the decision of their fate. "I will never
confer knighthood on an infidel," said Louis; "let the emir turn
Christian; I will take him away to France, enrich him, and make him
knight." It is said that, in their admiration for this piety and this
indomitable firmness, the emirs had at one time a notion of taking Louis
himself for sultan in the place of him whom they had just slain; and this
report was probably not altogether devoid of foundation, for, some time
afterwards, in the intimacy of the conversations between them, Louis one
day said to Joinville, "Think you that I would have taken the kingdom of
Babylon, if they had offered it to me?" "Whereupon I told him," adds
Joinville, "that he would have done a mad act, seeing that they had slain
their lord; and he said to me that of a truth he would not have refused."
However that may be, the conditions agreed upon with the late Sultan
Malek-Moaddam were carried out; on the 7th of May, 1250, Geoffrey
de Sargines gave up to the emirs the keys of Damietta; and the Mussulmans
entered in tumultuously. The king was waiting aboard his ship for the
payment which his people were to make for the release of his brother, the
Count of Poitiers; and, when he saw approaching a bark on which he
recognized his brother, "Light up! light up!" he cried instantly to his
sailors; which was the signal agreed upon for setting out. And leaving
forthwith the coast of Egypt, the fleet which bore the remains of the
Christian army made sail for the shores of Palestine.

The king, having arrived at St. Jean d'Acre on the 14th of May, 1250,
accepted without shrinking the trial imposed upon him by his unfortunate
situa