At the point when Saladin was guaranteed that King Richard
of England had truly taken
ship and left the nation to Europe, Saladin
started an advance through the land which had been won and held at so
incredible cost. He went by every one of the fortresses "and boss urban
areas, looking at their guards, giving requests for fortications, and putting
in each a solid army of stallion and foot. At Beyrut, on the Ist of November,
he got the Prince of Antioch, Bohemond the Stammerer, who taken an interest in
the arrangement of peace; the meeting was heartfelt, and the Prince was given
terrains in the plain of Antioch to the estimation of 15,000 gold pieces a
year. At Kaukab—at no time in the future to be called Belvoir—he discovered his
antiquated worker of early days, Karakush the developer of the dividers of Cairo, who had grieved in jail at Acre
as far back as the surrender. There were no censures, yet just the welcome
because of old and attempted commitment. On the fourth of November Damascus yet again
acclaimed its Sultan. He had not been inside its doors for a long time, and his
open levee the following day was thronged with old companions and glad
subjects. The artists had no words uncommon and sufficiently rich for the
considerable event.
Once more Saladin was at home among his child ren. We see
him sitting in his summer house in the castle grounds, with his younger
children about him. Envoys from the Franks were announced, but when they came
into his presence, their shaven chins, cropped hair, and strange clothes
frightened little Abu Bekr, who began to cry. The father, thinking only of the
child, dismissed the ambassadors with an excuse, before they had even delivered
their message. Older sons were there, grown men who had fought in his battles,
and with these and his brother, el Adil, he went day after day hunting the gazelle
in the spacious plains about Damascus.
He had thoughts of going to Mekka on pilgrimage, the supreme duty of the pious
Moslem; he wished to visit again that Egypt which had been_ his stepping stone
to power; but the time passed, and the pilgrims came back from Arabia, and
Saladin was still at Damascus, revelling in the delights of a peaceful home.
On Friday the 20th of February, he rode out with Baha d din
to meet the caravan of the Hajj. He had not been well of late, and it was the
wet season; the roads were streaming after heavy rains, and he had imprudently
forgotten to wear his usual quilted gambeson. That night he had fever. The next
day he could not join his friends at dinner, and the sight of the son sitting
in the father's seat brought tears to many eyes—they took it as an omen. Each
day the Sultan grew worse, his head was racked with pain, and he suffered
internally. On the fourth day the doctors bled him; and from that time he grew
steadily worse. The fever parched his skin, and he became weaker and weaker. On
the ninth day his mind wandered; he fell into a stupor and could no longer take
his draught. Every night Baha ed din and the chancellor el Fadil would go to see
him, or at least to hear the doctors’ report; and sometimes they would come out
streaming with tears, which they strove to command, for there was always a
multitude outside the gates waiting to learn from their faces how the Master
was. On Sunday, the tenth day of the illness, medicine gave some relief, the
sick man drank a good draught of barley water, and broke into a profuse
perspiration. “We gave thanks to God . . . and came out with lightened
hearts." It was but the last effort. On Tuesday night the faithful
secretary and chancellor were summoned to the castle, but they did not see the
Sultan, who was sinking fast. There was a divine with him, repeating the
confession of faith and reading the Holy Word; and when he came to the passage
“He is God, than whom there is no other God,—who knoweth the unseen and the seen,—the
Compassionate, the Merciful," the Sultan murmured, “True "; and when
the words came, “ In Him do I trust," the dying man smiled, his face
lighted up, and he rendered his soul to his Lord.
Saladin died on Wednesday, the 4th of March, 1193, at the
age of fty ve.