Louis wished to agree to this, but his nobles would not hear of it. Since there could not be peace between the armies, there was no escape for the Crusaders but by flight. Even that seemed hopeless. Still it was all that could be done. Only a few of the boats which had followed them up the Nile were left. On these they placed the sick men and all the women and children. Then by night they set them afloat down the stream towards Damietta. The nobles begged Louis to go on board one of these vessels. ‘Nay, I march with the last man of mine who lives,’ said Louis. As the army left the camp, it was attacked. Louis turned and fought wildly for his men. ‘Wait for the king! Wait for the king!’ rang from the banks. The vessels were stayed, but Louis signed to them to go on. At length Louis and his men left the camp. The king was on horseback, but without helmet or cuirass. But all their efforts were in vain. Both ships and soldiers fell into the hands of the enemy. The king was weak and ill, but still free. His knights saw that he could go no further. They sought to hide him in a house in an Egyptian town, where a humble woman from France tended him gladly. But in spite of the knights who guarded the door, the Moslems burst into the house and loaded King Louis with chains. They carried him to Mansourah in a vessel gaily decked in honour of the great prisoner they had taken. As he sailed southwards up the stream, he saw his men driven along the banks in chains. Louis in prison was as great a man as Louis in battle. He wore a coarse robe, because he would not deign to wear the gay clothing the sultan sent to him, nor would he feast with the Moslems, though they wished him to join them. Each day he saw some of his followers led out from prison. They were asked if they would cease to be Christians and accept the faith of the prophet. They refused. No sooner had they done so than they fell dead before the eyes of their captive king. It was a terrible thing for him to sit thus day after day and watch the men who had fought by his side, and whom he loved, slain in this barbarous way. When the sultan thought he had tried the king so long and so greatly that he would be glad to agree to any terms, he offered him freedom if he would give to him Damietta and the cities of Palestine. Louis had won Damietta in battle, but he had no right to the cities of the Holy Land. ‘The cities do not belong to me but to God,’ he said. Then the sultan threatened to torture Louis to make him yield. ‘I am the sultan’s prisoner,’ said the king; ‘he can do with me as he will.’ He was so calm and firm that a Moslem who stood by said: ‘You treat us, sire, as if you had us in prison instead of our holding you.’