On the 14th Richard led his own troops out of the city and pitched his tents near the enemy’s lines. A western [Sidenote: _Aug. 15_] writer tells us that next day Saladin begged for a further prolongation of the term, which Richard sternly refused; Saladin then asked for a colloquy with Richard on the [Sidenote: _Aug. 16_] morrow, but failed to keep the tryst, and excused his failure by declaring, “I did not come, because I could not fulfill the agreement which my people had made with him.”[731] The next two days seem to have been occupied in skirmishes in which the king took his full share.[732] [Sidenote: _Aug. 20_] Saladin’s advanced guard had now been withdrawn from Ayadiyeh to another height, Keisan, some two miles further south. On the morning of the 20th—the day finally fixed for the expiration of the “first term”—Richard sent his tents to the pits at the foot of the hill which the Saracens had quitted. Noon passed without a word or sign from Saladin. After mid-day the watchers on Keisan saw Richard come out on horseback with what to them looked like “the whole Frankish host” into the middle of the plain between Keisan and Ayadiyeh. They at once sent word to the Sultan, and were anxiously awaiting instructions and reinforcements from him when they saw the Moslem prisoners, bound with cords, led forth into the midst of the host and instantly slaughtered with swords and spears. Saladin’s reinforcements came too late to do anything except unite with the troops at Keisan in a futile, though gallant, effort to avenge the massacre by an attack so fierce and persistent that it was not beaten off till nightfall.[733]