this desolating
foe. They entrenched themselves in Jaffa with all the chivalry of
Palestine that yet remained, and endeavoured to engage the sultans of
Emissa and Damascus to assist them against the common enemy. The aid
obtained from the Moslems amounted at first to only four thousand men, but
with these reinforcements Walter of Brienne, the lord of Jaffa, resolved
to give battle to the Korasmins. The conflict was as deadly as despair on
the one side, and unmitigated ferocity on the other, could make it. It
lasted with varying fortune for two days, when the sultan of Emissa fled
to his fortifications, and Walter of Brienne fell into the enemy's hands.
The brave knight was suspended by the arms to a cross in sight of the
walls of Jaffa, and the Korasminian leader declared that he should remain
in that position until the city surrendered. Walter raised his feeble
voice, not to advise surrender, but to command his soldiers to hold out to
the last. But his gallantry was unavailing. So great had been the
slaughter, that out of the grand array of knights, there now remained but
sixteen Hospitallers, thirty-three Templars, and three Teutonic cavaliers.
These with the sad remnant of the army fled to Acre, and the Korasmins
were masters of Palestine.

The sultans of Syria preferred the Christians to this fierce horde for
their neighbours. Even the sultan of Egypt began to regret the aid he had
given to such barbarous foes, and united with those of Emissa and Damascus
to root them from the land. The Korasmins amounted to but twenty thousand
men, and were unable to resist the determined hostility which encompassed
them on every side. The sultans defeated them in several engagements, and
the peasantry rose up in masses to take vengeance upon them. Gradually
their numbers were diminished. No mercy was shewn them in defeat.
Barbaquan their leader was slain; and after five years of desperate
struggles, they were finally extirpated, and Palestine became once more
the territory of the Mussulmans.

[Illustration: WILLIAM LONGSWORD.]

A short time previous to this devastating eruption, Louis IX. fell sick in
Paris, and dreamed in the delirium of his fever that he saw the Christian
and Moslem host fighting before Jerusalem, and the Christians defeated
with great slaughter. The dream made a great impression on his
superstitious mind, and he made a solemn vow, that if ever he recovered
his health, he would take a pilgrimage to the Holy La