In the mean time Chirkou was crossing the desert, where he encountered the greatest dangers. A violent tempest surprised him on his march; all at once the heavens were darkened, and the earth, which was strewed with the prostrate Syrians, became like a stormy sea. Immense waves of sand were lifted by the winds, and rising into whirlwinds or forming moving mountains, scattered, bore away, or swallowed up men and horses. In this tempest the Syrian army abandoned its baggage and lost its provisions and arms, and when Chirkou arrived on the banks of the Nile, he had no means of defence left except the remembrance of his former victories. He took great care to conceal the losses he had experienced, and the wreck of an army dispersed by a fearful tempest proved sufficient to throw all the cities of Egypt into consternation.
The vizier Chaver, frightened at the approach of the Syrians, sent ambassadors to the Christians, to promise them immense riches, and press them to hasten their march. On his side, the king of Jerusalem deputed to the caliph of Egypt, Hugh of Cæsarea, and Foulcher, a knight of the Temple, to obtain the ratification of the treaty of alliance with the Egyptians. Amaury’s deputies were introduced into a palace in which no Christian had ever before been admitted. After having traversed several corridors filled with Moorish guards, and a vast number of apartments and courts in which glittered all the splendour of the East, they arrived in a hall, or rather a sanctuary, where the caliph awaited them, seated on a throne shining with gold and precious stones. Chaver, who conducted them, prostrated himself at the feet of his master, and supplicated him to accept the treaty of alliance with the king of Jerusalem. The prayer of the vizier was an imperious order, and the commander of the faithful, always docile to the will of the lowest of his slaves, made a sign of approbation, and stretched his uncovered hand out to the Christian deputies in presence of the officers of his court, whom so strange a spectacle filled with grief and surprise.
The army of the Franks was close to Cairo; but as the policy of Amaury was to lengthen the war, in order to prolong his stay in Egypt, he neglected opportunities of attacking the Syrians with advantage, and gave them time to recruit their strength. After having left them a long time in repose, he gave them battle in the isle of Maalle, and forced their intrenchments, but did not follow up his victory. Chirkou, in his retreat, endeavoured to reanimate the depressed courage of the soldiers of Noureddin, the latter not having yet forgotten the evils they had encountered in the passage over the desert. This calamity, still recent, together with the first victory of the Christians, destroyed the confidence they had in their arms and the protection of the Prophet. One of the lieutenants of Chirkou, upon witnessing their gloomy rage, cried out in the midst of the Mussulman army: “You who fear death or slavery, return into Syria; go and tell Noureddin that to repay him for the benefits with which he has loaded you, you abandon Egypt to the infidels, in order to shut yourselves up in your seraglios with women and children.”
These words reanimated the zeal and fanaticism of the Syrian warriors. The Franks and the Egyptians who pursued the army of Chirkou, were conquered in a battle, and forced to abandon in disorder the hills of Baben,[297] where they had pitched their tents. The general of Noureddin took all possible advantage of his victory; he passed as a conqueror along the fertile banks of the Nile; penetrated, without encountering an obstacle, into lower Egypt; placed a garrison in Alexandria; and returned to lay siege to the city of Koutz, the capital of the Thebais. The ability with which Chirkou had disciplined his army, and planned the last battle he had fought with his enemies; his marches and his counter-marches in the plains and valleys of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea, announced the progress of the Mussulmans in military tactics, and warned the Christians beforehand of the enemy that was destined to put an end to their victories and conquests.
The Turks defended themselves during several months in Alexandria, against the seditions of the inhabitants and the numerous assaults of the Christians. They at length obtained an honourable capitulation, and as their army was becoming weaker every day by famine and fatigue, they retired a second time to Damascus, after exacting very dear payment for the transient tranquillity in which they left the people of Egypt.
After the retreat of the Syrians, the vizier Chaver hastened to send back the Christians, whose presence made him very uneasy. He engaged to pay the king of Jerusalem an annual tribute of a hundred thousand crowns in gold, and consented to receive a garrison in Cairo. He loaded the barons and knights with rich presents, and the soldiers even had a share in his bounties, proportionate to the fear the Franks inspired him with. The Christian warriors returned to Jerusalem, bearing with them riches which dazzled both people and nobles, and inspired them with other thoughts than that of defending the heritage of Christ.
As Amaury returned to his capital, the sight of his mountainous and sterile provinces, the poverty of his subjects, and the narrow limits of his kingdom, made him deeply regret having missed the opportunity of conquering a great empire. Soon after his return he married a niece of the emperor Manuel; but whilst the people and his court gave themselves up to joy, and put up vows for the prosperity of his family and his kingdom, one single thought occupied him night and day, and haunted him even amongst the most sumptuous and brilliant festivities. The riches of the caliph of Cairo, the populousness and fertility of Egypt, its numerous fleets, and the commodiousness of its ports, presented themselves constantly to the mind of Amaury. His first endeavour was to make the marriage he had just contracted subservient to his projects, and he sent ambassadors to Constantinople, with instructions to induce Manuel to assist him in the conquest of Egypt. Manuel approved of the plans of the king of Jerusalem, and promised to send him fleets and share with him the glory and perils of a conquest which must so deeply interest the Christian world. Then Amaury hesitated no longer to declare his designs, and called together the barons and principal people of his kingdom. In this assembly, in which it was proposed to invade Egypt, the wisest among whom was the grand master of the Templars, declared loudly and decidedly that the undertaking was unjust. “The Christians,” said they, “ought not to set the Mussulmans the example of violating treaties. It perhaps would not be a difficult matter to obtain possession of Egypt, but it would not be so easy to keep it as to conquer it. Noureddin was the most formidable enemy of the Christians; it was against him they should bring all the united forces of the kingdom to bear. Egypt must belong to the power that should remain ruler of Syria, and it was not prudent or wise to endeavour to anticipate the favours of fortune, and send armies into a country of which they should only open the gates to the son of Zengui, as they had done in the instance of Damascus. They would sacrifice Christian cities, Jerusalem itself, to the hope of conquering a kingdom. Noureddin had already taken advantage of the king of Jerusalem’s being engaged on the banks of the Nile, to get possession of several places which belonged to the Christians. Bohemond prince of Antioch, and Raymond count of Tripoli, had been made prisoners of war, and groaned in the chains of the Mussulmans, as victims of an ambition which had seduced the king of Jerusalem far from his kingdom and the Christian colonies of which he ought to be the support and defender.”
The knights and barons who expressed themselves thus, added that the sight alone of Egypt would not fail to corrupt the Christian warriors, and enervate the courage and subdue the patriotism of the inhabitants and defenders of Palestine. These opinions, however prudent and just, had no effect upon the king of Jerusalem and the partisans of the war, among whom was conspicuous the grand master of the Hospitallers, who had exhausted the riches of his order by extravagant expenses, and had raised troops for whose pay he had assigned the treasures of Egypt. The greater part of the lords and knights, to whom fortune seemed to be waiting on the banks of the Nile in order to bestow upon them her favours, suffered themselves to be easily persuaded to the war, and found it very convenient to consider as an enemy the sovereign of a country which held out so rich a booty to them.
Whilst these preparations for the conquest of Egypt were in agitation in Jerusalem, the same projects occupied the emirs and the council of Noureddin.