Hugh took the message, and gave the advice that the Saracen wished. A council was held, and the terms were agreed to. The gates were thrown open, provisions taken in, and besiegers and besieged mingled on those friendly terms which were now common in the East. Saladin went to the camp of Amaury, who received him as a friend, and the Vizier Shawer entered into the city, and began the administration of justice; that is to say, he hanged all those who were unlucky enough to be in power when Shírkoh entered the city, and who had surrendered a place they had no means whatever of holding. Examples such as these, common enough in the Middle Ages, might have been expected to bring civic distinctions into disrepute. Ambition, however, was probably stronger than terror.
All being finished, the king returned to Ascalon, not entirely covered with glory, but not without credit.
On his arrival he learned that a bride was waiting for him at Tyre, Maria, niece of the Greek Emperor, who had been wooed and won for him—the young lady’s wishes were not probably much consulted in the matter—by the Archbishop of Cæsarea. He hastened to Tyre, and on the 29th of the month, nine days after his arrival at Ascalon, he was married in great state and ceremony. And now there was peace in Palestine for a brief space. The young Count of Nevers arrived in Jerusalem, with a numerous following, intending to offer his arms to the king, and dedicate his life to fighting the Mohammedans. But a sudden illness struck him down, and after languishing a long time, he died. A secret embassy was also sent to Amaury from Constantinople. The emperor had learned the feeble and enervated state of Egypt, and ignorant that Nûr-ed-dín, a greater than he, had his eyes upon the same country, sent to expose his own ambition to Amaury, and to propose terms of common action. The idea was not new to the long-sighted king, the most clear-headed of all the kings of Jerusalem. He had had plenty of opportunities, during his Egyptian campaign, of contrasting the riches of Cairo with the poverty of Jerusalem, the fertility of Egypt with the sterility of Palestine. Little as he cared about the Church, of which he was the sworn defender, it could not but occur to him to contrast Jerusalem with Mecca, and to consider that while Mecca was the Holy City, Baghdad and Cairo were the capitals of the sovereign caliphs. Why should not Cairo be to Jerusalem what Baghdad was to Mecca? Why should not he, the caliph of Christianity, sit in that gorgeous palace behind the gold-embroidered curtains, dressed in robes of purple and satin, with his guards, his life of indolence and ease, and—his seraglio? For the customs of the East had struck the imaginations of these descendants of the Crusaders. They, too, longed for the shady gardens, the fountains, the sweet scent of roses—and the houris of the world with whom the happy Turks anticipated the joys of heaven. Many of them, in their castles far away in the country, imitated, so far as they were able, the customs of their enemies; notably young Jocelyn of Edessa. Some of them became renegades, and going over to the Saracens, got riches, and therefore luxury, at the point of the sword. All of them—except perhaps the Templars and Hospitallers, who might do so in secret—openly maintained friendly relations with the Mohammedans, and partook freely of their hospitality.