ciiap. ii.] ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. 163

Christians at Mansourah and as emir murderedone sultan the sultana too being killed), ravagedmany parts of the Holy Land and menaced Acre;but after remaining three days before it, riding upto its very gates with his scimitar drawn, at the headof a body of most terrible-looking Mamelukes,even mining one of its towers, and raising thetakbir , 1 attempted its ditches, renewed the truce,and returned to Egypt ; 2 where he murdered asecond sultan and hurried to the Mameluke camp.“Who slew the sultan?”—“ I, ” replied Bibars.“ Reign then in place of him,” said the Atabec . 3And so Bibars assumed the sovereignty—dolefulnews for Christianity. Bibars had been originally aslave from the shores of the Black Sea, and, carriedto Damascus, he was sold there for eight hundredpieces of silver. The emir, who bought him, soldhim as unsound, for a white speck on one of hiseyes. He took the name of Boudochdar fromits being that of his former master . 4

Alexander IV. by his bull however 5 honourable,calling the Hospitallers “ Terras Sanctas athletae—

1 Mahometans have two war-cries, Takbir and Talilil, in sub-stance the same ; “ God is great.”—Arab. Chron., 489.

2 Michaud: Hist., v. 9.

3 Michaud: Hist., v. 10.—Arab. Chron., 480.

4 Arab. Chron., 534.

5 Cod. Dipl- Geros. i., Bolla xiii. 278.

M 2