rs; the women and the sick were placed here, while the army
remained beneath their tents. Louis still hoped for the conversion of
the King of Tunis, but this pious illusion was very quickly dissolved.
The Mussulman Prince sent messengers to the King to inform him that he
would come and meet him at the head of a hundred thousand men, and
would require baptism of him on the field of battle; the Moorish King
added that he had caused all the Christians in his dominions to be
seized, and that every one of them should be massacred if the
Christian army presumed to insult his capital. The menaces and vain
bravadoes of the Prince of Tunis effected no change in the plans of
the crusade; the Moors, besides, inspired no fear, and they themselves
could not conceal the terror which the sight only of the Christians
created in them. Not daring to face their enemy, their scattered bands
sometimes hovered around the Christian army, seeking to surprise any
stragglers from the camp; and at others, uniting together, they poured
down toward the advanced posts, launched a few arrows, showed their
naked swords, and then depended upon the swiftness of their horses to
secure them from the pursuit of the Christians. They not unfrequently
had recourse to treachery; three hundred of them came into the camp of
the crusaders, and said they wished to embrace the Christian faith,
and a hundred more followed them announcing the same intention. After
being received with open arms, they waited for what they deemed a
favorable opportunity, and fell upon a body of the Christians, sword
in hand; but being overwhelmed by numbers, most of them were killed,
and the rest were allowed to escape. Three of the principals fell on
their knees and implored the compassion of their leaders. The contempt
the Franks had for such enemies obtained their pardon, and they were
driven out of the camp. At length the Mussulman army, now emboldened
by the inaction of the Christians, presented itself several times on
the plain. Nothing would have been more easy than to attack and
conquer it; but Louis had resolved to act upon the defensive, and to
await the arrival of the King of Sicily, before beginning the war--a
fatal resolution, which ruined everything. The Sicilian monarch, who
had advised this ill-starred expedition, was destined to complete, by
his delays, the evil he had begun by his counsels. The Mussulmans
flocked from all parts of Africa to defend the cause of Islamism