The Sultan had been rejoined at Jerusalem on July 17 by his son Ed-Daher, who ruled at Aleppo; and Safadin, recalled from Mesopotamia, was close at hand with further reinforcements when on the 22nd Saladin learned that the Christian host had left Joppa and was on its way to Beyrout. He at once went to Beit Nuba to reconnoitre, leaving orders for all his troops to follow him thither. Safadin joined [Sidenote: _July 23_] him there next day. By the 25th their united forces were [Sidenote: _July 25_] on the old camping-ground of the Franks between Lydda and Ramlah. On the 26th—the day of Richard’s arrival at Acre—Saladin reconnoitred Joppa; before nightfall his men were around its walls, and on Monday 27th they assaulted the town.[969] After four days of furious fighting Saladin’s engines made, on Friday the 31st, a breach through which his men swarmed into the town; it was given over to pillage and slaughter, and the garrison in the citadel promised to surrender, on terms arranged between them and the Sultan, if they were not relieved before three o’clock on the morrow.[970] They were in hourly expectation of Richard’s return; for they had, as soon as the Moslem army came in sight, despatched by sea an urgent message to recall him from Acre.[971] The message was delivered to Richard as he sat in his tent on the evening of Tuesday July 28.[972] He at once summoned the host to go back with him to Joppa; but the French “declared they would not stir a foot with him.”[973] A number of Templars, Hospitaliers, and other “good knights,” however, set off by land to the rescue, while Richard with another party, comprising the rest of his own men and some Genoese and Pisans, went on board the galleys. The land party on reaching Caesarea learned that the road between that place and Arsuf was blocked by “the son of the Assassin”; not daring to risk an encounter with forces of whose numbers they knew nothing and of whose military repute all Syria stood in awe, they made no attempt to proceed further. The ships were caught by a contrary wind off Haïfa, detained by it for three days, and so dispersed by its violence that only three of them at last came in sight of Joppa, late in the [Sidenote: _July 31_] evening of Friday the 31st, and had to wait at a safe distance for the rest to overtake them, and also for the light of day.[974] One of the three carried Richard, chafing sorely at all these hindrances: “God, have mercy! Why dost Thou keep me here, when I am going in Thy service?”[975] In the afternoon of that same Friday Saladin had received from Acre a letter telling him that Richard had given up his intended expedition against Beyrout and was hastening to the relief of Joppa. The Sultan and his confidant Bohadin at once decided that the agreement with the garrison must be flung to the winds, and an effort made to get the garrison out of the citadel before Richard should arrive. Saladin spent some time in haranguing his troops and exhorting them to storm