During these dissensions the lines of the encampment were left without any systematic defence, and were constantly raided by parties of swift Bedouin riders, who made their assault as the sudden dust-clouds of Libya overwhelm the traveller and quickly disappear again in their kindred sands. Carismian adventurers were also lured by the sultan’s promise of a golden bezant for every Christian head, and half as much for a right hand, and a fifth for a foot. They dashed upon the detached groups, or stole secretly by night into the tents, and bore away their prize, leaving the mutilated bodies of the knights to tell of their deed. The sultan, Negmeddin, knowing that disease was hastening his end, redeemed the time by the incessant activity of his subalterns. Mansourah, at the junction of the branches of the Nile, soon presented the aspect of an impregnable circle of fortifications. The arrival of the king’s brother, the Count of Poitiers, revived the martial ardor of the French; and it was decided to attack the Egyptian capital, Cairo, or Babylon (Babloon), as it was then called. The majority of the crusaders supposed this place to be the Babylon of the Scriptures, still stored with the immense riches of the ancients, and waiting for them to fulfil upon it the curses of the prophets. There was a rumor that certain renegade Moslems had already entered into a compact to deliver the citadel of Cairo to the advancing Christians. This report even reached Europe, where it was magnified into a detailed account of the capture of the Egyptian capital, and awakened universal joy, to be turned into mourning as the news of the real events arrived. Negmeddin, Sultan of Cairo, died, but the event was kept secret within the citadel, while Chegger-Eddour, the favorite sultana, issued orders as if her husband were living, until the new sultan, Almoadam Turan Shan, had securely gripped the reins of power. Meanwhile the French were advancing. On December 19th they reached the canal Aschmoun, a deep and broad stream, which could be crossed only by the crusaders building a causeway. As fast as this work extended into the stream the Moslems dug away the opposite bank, and so each day left the canal of unlessened width. The Infidels massed across the canal; their fleet waited in the Nile above. The Christians were forced to make their camp at Mansourah, on the identical site of the terrible disaster thirty years before.