ain their
spirits, and stimulate their fanaticism.

Now at that time Melikul Salih was Sultan of Egypt; but he was not at
Damietta, and his absence caused much uncertainty and dismay among the
warriors assembled to defend his dominions. Melikul Salih was then at
Cairo; and almost every man in Fakreddin's army knew that Melikul Salih
was dying.

CHAPTER XII.

AT DAMIETTA.

ABOUT a mile from the sea, on the northern bank of the second mouth of
the Nile, stood the city of Damietta, with its mosques, and palaces, and
towers, and warehouses, defended on the river side by a double rampart,
and on the land side by a triple wall. Fair and enchanting to the eye
was the locality in which it was situated; and as the Crusaders directed
their gaze towards the groves of oranges and citrons, loaded with
flowers and fruit, the woods of palms and sycamores, the thickets of
jasmines and odoriferous shrubs, the vast plains, with pools and lakes
well stocked with fish, the thousand canals intersecting the land, and
crowned with papyrus and reeds, they, feeling the influence of a rich
climate and a beautiful sky, could not find words sufficiently strong to
express their admiration and delight.

'Now, good Walter,' said Guy Muschamp, as the brothers-in-arms, having
ascended to the castle of the 'Hilda,' looked earnestly towards the
shore, 'who can deny that such a land is worth fighting to conquer?'

'On my faith,' exclaimed Walter Espec, with enthusiasm, 'it is so
pleasant to the eye, that I could almost persuade myself I am looking
upon that terrestrial paradise in which the father and mother of mankind
lived so happily before eating the fatal apple.'

No wonder, when such was the aspect of the country around Damietta, that
the armed pilgrims were impatient to land.

And no time was lost; for, of all the armed pilgrims, King Louis was
perhaps the most eager to encounter the enemies of his religion; and,
soon after daybreak, on the morning of Friday, a signal was given for
the fleet to weigh anchor and draw near to the shore.

Meanwhile the Saracens, under the Emir Fakreddin, were on the alert; and
while a bell, that had remained in the great mosque of Damietta ever
since John de Brienne seized the city in 1217, tolled loudly to warn the
inhabitants of the danger, the Moslem warriors got under arms, and with
cavalry and infantry occupied the whole of that part of the strand at
which the Crusaders had resolved to disembark