ABEY. I.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

5

few hours longer, for that they had resolved thatvery night to cut the throats of all the Franks . 1

“ The capitulation, that each should pay a smallsum of money, was not rigorously exacted; thou-sands of expedients to avoid it. Forty days wereallowed for all who chose to betake themselves toTyre or Tripoli . 2 After a week, came the time pre-fixed for leaving Jerusalem, and, certainly, it was amelancholy scene ; all the gates were shut but one,and Saladin on a throne to see all pass, tire clergywith the consecrated vessels and the ornamentsand treasures of the churches, and chiefly of theHoly Sepulchre, which some fanatic Moslem wishedto pull down, and plough up the place, to preventall further Christian pilgrimages 3 — the priestsand their infinite riches were all allowed to file byunexamined. 4 —Even upon some of his emirsobjecting that those treasures were valued at twohundred thousand pieces of gold, and that, by thecapitulation, the clergy had only leave to canyaway their own effects, and not the church orna-ments, Saladin replied, ‘ Let them alone, otherwisethey would accuse us of treachery. They do notwell know the true meaning of the capitulation.

1 Aboulfarage.—Arab. Chron., 207. Note.

2 Michaud: Hist., ii. 289. 3 Arab. Chron., 214.

4 Arab. Chron., 211.