ver its portals, when the ambassadors of St.
Louis reached Bagdad, and craved an audience of the heir of the prophet.
It was a sight to impress even men accustomed to the wealth and
splendour of Acre; and they thanked God for having conducted them in
safety to a place where there was a prospect of food and rest.

But Walter Espec was not thinking of such things; his whole mind was
occupied with the question, whether or not his lost brother was a
captive within these walls.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE LAST OF THE CALIPHS.

ASTONISHED as the Caliph Musteazem might be at the audacity which
prompted a Frankish king to send ambassadors to the heir of the prophet,
he did not venture to decline receiving the message of a prince who so
recently had threatened the empire of Egypt with destruction, and might
have the power of doing so again. Besides, Musteazem was not in the most
celestial humour with the Mamelukes, who seemed inclined to defy his and
every other person's authority; and, on hearing that the result of all
the disorders and revolutions had been the elevation of Bibars Bendocdar
to the throne of Saladin, he remarked, in homely oriental phrase, 'when
the pot boils, the scum rises to the top.' Above all, Musteazem was a
miser, and covetous to the last degree; and when it was explained to him
by his grand vizier, whom the Templar had already bribed with a purse of
gold, that the King of France was liberal in money matters, and was
ready to pay handsomely for the ransom of his captive countrymen, the
caliph's ruling passion prevailed--his avarice got the better of his
dignity; and, without farther words, he consented to grant an audience
to the Franks.

Meanwhile, the ambassadors and their attendants were admitted within the
gates of the palace, and conducted into an immense garden, there to wait
till suitable apartments were assigned them. And this garden made them
stare with wonder; its regal magnificence was so surprising as to make
them start and stop simultaneously, and to make Bisset exclaim--

'Of a truth, the lines of this pope of the infidels have fallen in
pleasant places. None of King Henry's palaces can boast of anything like
this. Surely it must be the terrestrial paradise.'

Now, this garden might well surprise the ambassadors. In the centre was
a kiosk of the richest architecture, constructed entirely of marble and
alabaster, with an arcade composed of countless marble pillars. In the
court was a