abey. I. ] ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. 7

beautiful dames and young ladies had to praiseGod, internally and most sweetly, for the goodand signal honour which Saladin had done them . 1Fierce, glorious and lofty were his virtues; andhe testified it by the careful respect shown by thesoldiers he sent with each band of Christian captives;towards whom they acted with the utmost humanity,permitting none to insult them, and if a man orwoman, or child, fell sick or tired by the way,those soldiers used to alight and walk, and put theirprisoners on their horses. Kindness, and tender-ness, and courtesies, were found in all Saladin’sarmy. I declare it was so then, whatever it wasbefore or since. And, to several Christian knightshe gave fiefs, considering they had neither thestrength nor riches for a journey to Europe, andwere too accustomed to the climate to change.Nor proposed any altering of religion to them.So that of the one hundred thousand Christians,by far the greater part went free; ransomed bytheir own money or Moslem charity. The soldan’sbrother paid the ransom of two thousand, Saladinof as many, and also set free crowds of poor peopleand orphans. Numbers were furtively let downthe walls by ropes; others borrowed Mahometandresses, and escaped as such. One thousand grown-1 Bernard le Tresorier.—Bib. Crois., ii. 280.