42 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book I.

swear or to be responsible for any one or anything . 1So the ratification was withheld—which droveKing Richard (God curse him) furious, and medi-tating a terrible vengeance, he mounted his horse,and in the plain before the two armies drawn up,had his handcuffed and enchained hostages put todeath, to the number of better than three thousandMussulmen . 2 Yet it is affirmed, it was not theking, but the whole Christian army, that decidedin a general court-martial. The sentence iniquitousor not, was theirs, not his . 3 Some Moslems blamedSaladin more than Richard; and that their soldan,by not keeping the treaty, abandoned his co-religion-ists to death.

Saladin should not have allowed any sum, or anyworldly consideration, to make him spur theChristian to a deed which he could not have wellavoided in his station, where the interests of somany nations were confided to him alone, andmany ready to accuse him of imprudence. Of hisprivate generosity all Mahometans were convinced,and that his rigour was for the public . 4 But thewhole was over as to that treaty, and cross andmoney went back to Damascus. “ As to the cross,not from any value the soldan saw in it, nor any

1 Arab. Chron., 319. 2 Id., 320.

3 Micbaud: Hist., ii. 395. 4 Michaud: Hist., ii. 396.