However that may have been, the crusading fleet sailed for Tunis, carrying an army sadly tried by sickness, and whose ardour had already strangely begun to cool. The Moors permitted the Christians, almost unopposed, to disembark and take possession of Carthage (Fig. 111), which had dwindled down to a mere village. Some of the Crusaders housed themselves in the ruins of the ancient Carthaginian city, the remainder bivouacked under the burning sun of Africa, surrounded and harassed by the infidels, whose light cavalry kept continuously skirmishing around them. It was not long before the plague broke out in the Christian army, whilst it was still awaiting the arrival of the King of Sicily and his troops, and Louis IX., already in feeble health, bowed down by premature old age, and heartbroken in consequence of the death of one of his sons, was attacked by it. [Illustration: Fig. 112.--St. John of Capistran, Franciscan Monk, who defended Belgrade against the Turks.--From a Painting by Bartolommeo Vivarini, in the Louvre. Fifteenth Century.] As soon as this culminating misfortune was known in the camp there was unusual consternation and despondency, for every one knew that the king was the life and soul of the expedition. From his sickbed, where he was undergoing the most cruel sufferings, he still continued to issue his orders with that composure and gentleness which were habitual to him; but every hour increased his feebleness, every moment brought him nearer to his end. As soon as he perceived that his death was at hand, he tranquilly dictated his last instructions to his son Philip--instructions which have rightly been termed celestial;--then kneeling at the bedside he received extreme unction, after which, stretching himself upon a bed of ashes as a sign of repentance and humility, his eyes turned beseechingly towards heaven, and the words of the psalmist on his lips, “O Lord, I will enter thy temple and glorify thy name,” he quietly breathed his last (August 25th, 1270). [Illustration: Fig. 113.--Don Juan of Austria, holding a boarding-axe in remembrance of the Battle of Lepanto.--From a painting attributed to Alonso Sanchez Coello, Portuguese painter, in the possession of M. Carderera, of Madrid. End of the Sixteenth Century.]