Long before the first Crusade, a hospice had been built near the Holy Sepulchre. The Brothers who lived there welcomed pilgrims and were kind to the poor. At the time of the taking of Jerusalem, they gave such ready help to the armies of the Cross that many crusading knights joined their brotherhood. These men promised always to fight against the Saracens and also to seek no wealth for themselves. They were called the Knights Hospitallers. They wore a long black robe with five white crosses on it in time of peace, but in time of war they wore an upper robe of red with a silver cross on its shoulder. The knights of the other order were named Templars. They wore a long white mantle with a red cross on the shoulder. In battle they carried a flag, half white and half black. It meant that they were simple and frank to Christians, but dark and fearsome to Moslems. The Templars were so proud of their vow of poverty that their seal was two knights on the back of one horse. But though they boasted of it they often forgot it in daily life.

If King and Patriarch, Hospitallers and Templars, had remembered that white-and-black banner, and had always been frank and simple to Christians, nothing could have stood against them. Instead of that, they often fought amongst themselves and said bitter things about each other, and weakened the kingdom they had vowed to strengthen.

In Europe there had been many changes. The Crusade had done far less for the Christians in the Holy Land than Peter had dreamed it would do. But it had done much for the countries to which the Crusaders belonged. It had made people think for themselves.

But every one did not think that that was a good thing. Bernard, who preached the second Crusade, did not think so. He wished the power of the Church to rule everything and every one. He was a very great man, and while he lived kings and emperors obeyed him, as if they had been little children. The Pope himself used to ask him to tell him what he must do. Bernard always knew what he wished, and he quickly found the best way to gain his ends, for his heart was simple, and he coveted no earthly honour nor wealth for himself. He had become a monk when he was very young. Though he had been brought up in great comfort, he only ate coarse bread soaked in warm water. He was as unwilling to give pleasure to his mind as to his body. One time some friends came to see him and made him smile. He thought this was a great sin, and he lay before the altar for twenty-five days praying for pardon.

When any one wished to enter his order, he said to them, You must leave your body outside, only spirits can enter here.

Yet though Bernard was a great and strong man, the Crusade he planned ended in failure. Thousands of knights and soldiers died in Asia, and the leaders came back to Europe with only a handful of the men who had followed them in the wars.

Not very long after the return of these fighting men, a lad named Saladin went to Egypt from Damascus. Saladin liked pleasure and idleness, and he was very unwilling to leave his happy home in the north to go to Egypt to fight under his uncle. When he was told that he must do this, he said, I go, but with the despair of a man led to death. The ruler of Egypt had many men around him who wished for more power and honour than they had, and he was afraid that one of them would kill him and take his place. He saw Saladin, and noticed that he seemed careless about making a name for himself, and yet that he was a very great fighter when he was roused by battle. This made him wish to have him always with him, and so Saladin was made ruler of the forces.

But then a strange change came over Saladin. He no sooner had charge of men than he ceased to be a thoughtless lad, and became a serious leader of armies. Instead of growing slowly, as most people do, he seemed to change all at once from a playful, self-willed child to a strong man, who could bear all hardships to gain his end. Soon the ruler of Egypt died, and Saladin reigned in his place. Ere long he was Lord of Bagdad too, and that meant that he had power over the whole Moslem world.

During all this time the kings of Jerusalem were weak, powerless men. At first Saladin wished to make a truce with the one who reigned when he became Lord of Bagdad. This was not because he had any kind feeling towards him. He only wished to get time to make his own kingdom strong ere he fought for the little belt of Syrian land that belonged to the Christians. It was the only bit in all that part of the world that he did not rule.

But a noble of the kingdom of Jerusalem, named the Lord of Carac, broke the truce. He robbed caravans and killed Moslems whenever he could. Saladin was very angry. He could wait no longer, but decided to fight for Jerusalem at once.

In the Holy City, jealousy and bitterness were making strife amongst those who ought to have been friends. Red cross knights hated white cross knights. When they did uphold each other it was not in order to fight the foe, but to fight the priests. They even shot arrows at them in the streets of Jerusalem. The priests gathered up the arrows, laid them out under the open sky, and prayed that God would punish the knights. And when the time came to face Saladin, it was not possible to get the Christian army to fight as one man.

The Saracens took the town of Tiberias on the Lake of Galilee. The news of this was brought to the King of Jerusalem as he rode out to meet Saladin. Count Raymond, in whose land Tiberias was, rode beside the king. The Count's wife and children were in the town, but yet Raymond said:

This army is all we have: if we lose it, the Holy City will be lost. Let us go to some place where Saladin will have to attack us, where we shall hold the fortress instead of attacking him. I would rather lose this country and all that I possess, if by that I might save the Holy City.

But the other knights made the king believe that Raymond said this because he was really on Saladin's side, and wished him to win. The king yielded to them, and the army marched forward to Tiberias. When they reached the town, they found that all the heights on the hills round it were fortified. For two days a terrible battle raged. The Moslems even were astonished at the brave way the crusading army fought to save the wood of the true Cross which they had carried into the fight. They said that the knights flew round it like moths round a candle.

But at last the bishop who bore it was killed, and the Cross was carried to Saladin's camp. When the Crusaders raised the body of the dead bishop they found that he had worn a coat of mail under his robe, and they thought that it was because of his want of faith that they had lost the battle, for always before, the bearer of the Cross had gone unarmed into battle.

When the Cross was taken, the crusading army lost all courage. One after another of the leaders was taken prisoner. Count Raymond escaped, but soon he died of misery for a lost cause and a lost home.

When the king and the Lord of Carac were brought before Saladin the Moslem welcomed the king kindly. He offered him a great goblet full of cool wine. The king was hot and faint from battle. The wine was pleasant to him, and it made him hope for kindness from Saladin.

The king drank. Then he passed the goblet to the Lord of Carac, but Saladin seized his arm

That traitor shall not drink in my presence, he shouted.

The count looked at him with scorn, and made his rage hotter by acting as boldly as if he had been a free man in his own castle.

Choose between the Moslem faith and death! said Saladin. Carac had not been true to the truce, but he would not give up his loyalty to the Crusaders in order to save his life. Quick as thought the scimitar of a Turkish soldier severed the head of the count from his body, which fell lifeless at the feet of the king. Then the captive knights were led in.

Slay every one his man. I will rid the earth of these unclean races, said Saladin to his warriors. They hung back. The knights were prisoners of war and unarmed, and the Moslem soldiers did not wish to butcher them. But Saladin would not listen even to his own soldiers when they asked him to spare his captives. They had to do his will, and knight after knight fell dead before the king.

After these terrible days Saladin went with haste to Jerusalem. He sent this message to the Christians in the city:

I, as well as you, count Jerusalem to be the house of God; I will not defile it with blood if I can gain it by peace and love. Give it up, and I will give you freedom to go where you will, and as much land as you can till.

But they answered:

We cannot yield the city in which our God died. Still less can we sell it to you.

By and by, when they saw that they could not hold out against Saladin, they offered to agree to what he had said.

It is too late, replied Saladin; look at my yellow banners floating from the wall! He did not know how brave the men were. When they heard his answer they sent this message:

Very well, we will destroy the city. Your mosque and the stone of Jacob which you worship shall be made into dust. Five thousand Moslem prisoners shall be slain. Then we will kill our wives and our children, and march out to you with fire and sword. Not one of us will die till ten Moslems lie slain by his sword.

When Saladin heard these threats, he said he would let each citizen who could pay for his ransom go free.

On the day on which the Christians were to leave Jerusalem, Saladin sat on a throne and watched the stream of people press out of the gate. First came the priests. They bore the Communion vessels and the ornaments of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Then the queen came, and with her a band of nobles, and then the great crowd of people. They were very sad. They were leaving their homes and their city, and some of them were leaving friends for whom no ransom money could be found. Now and again the line was broken and some one took courage to fall before the Sultan to beg for the freedom of husband or of children who had been left behind. Saladin and his brother paid the ransom money for thousands, and only a small band stayed to be the slaves of the Moslems.

The saddened Christians were gone from the streets of the Holy City, and a crowd of joyous and excited people surged everywhere. Jerusalem was nearly as sacred to the Moslems as to those they had conquered. They hurled down a great cross from the dome above which it stood. They washed the mosque of Omar within and without with rosewater, that no Christian dust even might lie on the walls or floors. Allah is the name by which Moslems speak of God, and Saladin was welcomed everywhere as the bright star of Allah.

When the news of the fall of Jerusalem reached Europe, the grief was terrible. The Pope died of sorrow. The royal courts went into mourning. The priests veiled the statues in the churches. Songs of love and chivalry were forgotten, and the minstrels sang only of the captured city.