But these unseemly disputes were soon drowned amid the shouts of a more formidable warfare waged against Palestine by the Mamlouk sovereign of Egypt, the sanguinary and bigoted Bibars. His troops demolished the churches of Nazareth and Mount Tabor; after which they advanced to the gates of Acre, inflicting the most horrid cruelties upon the unprotected Christians. Sephouri and Azotus were taken by storm, or yielded upon terms. At the reduction of the former, it was agreed that the knights and garrison, amounting in all to six hundred men, should be conducted to the nearest Christian town. But no sooner was the sultan put in possession of the fortress than he violated the conditions of surrender, and left the knights only a few hours to determine on the alternative of death or conversion to Islamism. The prior and two Franciscan monks succeeded by their exhortations in fixing the faith of the religious cavaliers; and hence, at the time appointed for the declaration of their choice, they unanimously avowed their resolution to die rather than incur the dishonour of apostacy. The decree for the slaughter of the Templars was pronounced and executed; while the three preachers of martyrdom, as if responsible for the conduct of their countrymen, were flayed alive. A large Christian state had been formed at Antioch, in alliance with the kingdom of Jerusalem. Bibars, after reducing Jaffa and the castle of Beaufort, marched his fierce soldiers against the capital of Syria, and soon added it to the number of his conquests. Forty thousand believers is Christ were on this occasion put to the sword, and not fewer than one hundred thousand were led into captivity. The barbarian, indeed, avowed the fell purpose of exterminating the whole Christian community in the East, extending the terror of death or the ascendency of the Koran from the Nile to the mountains of Armenia. But his progress was stopped by the intelligence which reached him in Palestine, that the King of Cyprus had resolved to interpose his arms in behalf of the Holy Land, and was about to make a descent on the coast at the head of a large force collected from various nations. Bibara returned to Cairo, fitted out a fleet for the conquest of that island, and intended, during the absence of its sovereign, to annex it permanently to the dominions of Egypt. But his ships were lost in a tempest; his military character suffered from the failure of the enterprise; his power was weakened; and he ceased to be any longer the scourge and dread of the Christian world.