neral Beibars to join
them against his uncle, the Syrian prince Ismail, between whom and the
crusaders an unholy union had prevailed. Near Joppa the combined army
of Franks and Moslems met at the hands of Beibars and the eastern
hordes, with a bloody overthrow; and thus all Syria again fell under
Egypt. To establish his power both at home and abroad, the Sultan
bought vast numbers of Turkish mamelukes; and it was he who first
established them as Baharites on the Nile. His son Turan was the last
Eyyubite sultan.

In his reign Louis IX of France invaded Egypt, and, advancing upon
Cairo, was defeated and taken prisoner. Turan allowed him to go free;
and for this act of kindness, as well as for attempts to curb their
outlawry, he was pursued and slain by the Baharite mamelukes, who
thereupon seized the government.

The leading mamelukes chose one of themselves, the emir Eibek, to be
head of the administration. He contented himself at first to govern in
the name of Eyyub's widow, who, indeed, had been in complicity with
the assassins of her stepson Turan. The Caliph of Bagdad, however,
objected to a female reigning even in name, and so Eibek married the
widow; and still further to conciliate the Eyyubites of Syria and
Kerak, elevated to the title of sultan a child of the Eyyubite stock.

This concession notwithstanding, Nasir the Eyyubite, ruler of
Damascus, advanced on Egypt, but, deserted by his Turkish slaves, was
beaten back by Eibek, who returned in triumph to the capital. He soon
found it, however, impossible to hold the turbulent mamelukes in hand,
for, with the victorious general Aktai at their head, they scorned
discipline and defied authority. Eibek, therefore, compassed the death
of Aktai, on which the Baharite emirs all rose in rebellion. They were
defeated. Many were slain and cast into prison; the rest fled to
Nasir, and eventually to Kerak. Among the latter were Beibars and
Kilawun, of whom we shall hear more hereafter.

Eibek was now undisputed Sultan, recognized as such by all the powers
around. And so he bethought him of taking a princess of Mosul for
another wife; on which the Sultana, already estranged, caused him to
be put to death; and she too, in the storm that followed, was
assassinated by the slave girls of still another wife.

Eibek's minor son was now raised by the emirs to the titular
sultanate; and Kotuz, a distinguished mameluke of Charizmian birth,
persuaded to assume the uninviting post