He also immediately turned the
archduke and all his vassals out of the town, declaring that they
should not share the protection of walls that they would not help to
build; so they were obliged to encamp without, in company with that
portion of the army that could not be accommodated within the walls.
But, notwithstanding the bad example set thus by the archduke, far the
greater portion of the knights, and barons, and high officers of the
army joined very heartily in the work of building the walls. Even the
bishops, and abbots, and other monks, as well as the military nobles,
took hold of the work with great zeal, and the repairs went on much
more rapidly than could have been expected. During all this time the
army kept their communications open with the other towns along the
coast--with Jaffa, and Acre, and other strongholds, so that at length
the whole shore was well fortified, and secure in their possession.
Saladin, during all this time, had distributed his troops in various
encampments along the line parallel with the coast, and at some
distance from it, and for some weeks the two armies remained, in a
great degree, quiet in their several positions. The Crusaders were
too much diminished in numbers by the privations and the sickness
which they had undergone, as well as by the losses they had suffered
in battle, and too much weakened by their internal dissensions, to go
out of their strongholds to attack Saladin, while, on the other hand,
they were too well protected by the walls of the towns to which they
had retreated for Saladin to attack them. Both sides were waiting for
re-enforcements. Saladin was indeed continually receiving accessions
to his army from the interior, and Richard was expecting them from
Europe. He sent to a distinguished ecclesiastic, named the Abbot of
Clairvaux, who had a high reputation in Europe, and enjoyed great
influence at many of the principal courts. In his letter to the abbot,
he requested him to visit the different courts, and urge upon the
princes and the people of the different countries the necessity that
they should come to the rescue of the Christian cause in the Holy
Land. Unless they were willing, he said, that all hope of regaining
possession of the Holy Land should be abandoned, they must come with
large re-enforcements, and that, too, without any delay.
During the period of delay occasioned by these circumstances, there
was a sort of truce established between the two
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