in them up to the neck, and cut off their tresses, and threw them away. Monks, priests, and nuns went barefooted round the walls of the city, bearing in procession the said Cross before them. The priests bore on their heads the _Corpus Domini_, but our Lord Jesus Christ would not listen to any prayer that they made, by reason of the stinking luxury and adultery in the city which prevented any prayer from mounting up to God.... When Balian came to Saladin, he said that the Christians would give up the city if their lives were saved. Saladin replied that he spoke too late; but he added, ‘Sir Balian, for the love of God and of yourself, I will take pity on them in a manner, and, to save my oath (that he would only take them by force), they shall give themselves up to me as if they were taken by force, and I will leave them their property to do as they please, but their bodies shall be my prisoners, and he who can ransom himself shall do so, and he who cannot shall be my prisoner.’ ‘Sire,’ said Balian, ‘what shall be the price of the ransom?’ Saladin replied that the price should be for poor and rich alike, for a man thirty byzants, for every woman and every child, ten. And whoever could not pay this sum was to be a slave.... “Balian went back with these hard terms, and during the night prevailed upon the Master of the Knights Hospitallers to give up, for the ransom of the poor, all that was left of the treasure of King Henry of England. And the next day he obtained of Saladin a reduction of the ransom by one half. “Then said Balian to Saladin, ‘Sire, you have fixed the ransom of the rich; fix now that of the poor, for there are twenty thousand who cannot pay the ransom of a single man. For the love of God put in a little consideration and I will try to get from the Temple, the Hospitallers, and the bourgeois, as much as will deliver all.’ Saladin said that he would willingly have consideration, and that a hundred thousand byzants should let all the poor go free. ‘Sire,’ said Balian, ‘when all those who are able have ransomed themselves, there will not be left half of the ransom which you demand for the poor.’ Saladin said that it should not be otherwise. Then Balian bethought him that he should not make so cheap a bargain by ransoming all together as if he ransomed part at a time, and that by the help of God he might get the rest at a cheaper rate. Then he asked Saladin for how much he would deliver seven thousand men. ‘For fifty thousand byzants.’ ‘Sire,’ said Balian, ‘that cannot be; for God’s sake let us have reason.’ “It was finally arranged that seven thousand men should be ransomed for thirty thousand byzants, two women or ten children to count as one man. When all was arranged Saladin gave them fifty days to sell and mortgage their effects and pay their ransom, and announced that he who should be found in the city after fifty days should belong to the conquerors, body and goods.