The Mussulmans were preparing for the war in all quarters; everything was in motion from the banks of the Nile to those of the Euphrates. The sultan Kelaoun having fallen sick on leaving Cairo, sent before him seven principal emirs, each having four thousand horse and twenty thousand foot under his command. On their arrival upon the territories of Ptolemaïs, gardens, country-houses, the vines which covered the hills—everything was destroyed. The sight of the conflagration which arose on all sides, the distracted crowd of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who fled from their homes, with their goods, their flocks, and their families, warned Ptolemaïs of the execution of the threats and the sinister projects of the Saracens: there were several battles fought on the plain, but nothing remarkable or decisive; the Mussulmans waited the arrival of the sultan to commence the labours of the siege. In the meanwhile, Kelaoun was still detained in Egypt by sickness, and feeling his end approach, the sultan sent for his son and his principal emirs; he recommended to the latter, to serve his son as they had served himself; and to the former, to follow up the war against the Christians without any intermission, conjuring him not to grant his remains the honour of sepulture before he had conquered the city of Ptolemaïs. Chalil swore to accomplish the last wishes of his father; and when Kelaoun had closed his eyes, the ulemas and the imauns assembled in the chapel in which his remains were deposited, and read during the whole night verses from the Koran, never ceasing to invoke their prophet against the disciples of Christ. Chalil did not delay setting forward on his march with his army. The Franks hoped that the death of Kelaoun would give birth to some disorders among the Mamelukes; but hatred for the Christians was a sufficient bond of union for the Mussulman soldiers; the siege even of Ptolemaïs, the hope of annihilating a Christian city, stifled all the germs of discord, and consolidated the power of Chalil, whom they proclaimed beforehand the conqueror of the Franks, and the _pacificator of the Mussulman religion_. The sultan arrived before Ptolemaïs; his army covering a space of several leagues, from the sea to the mountains. More than three hundred machines of war were ready to batter the ramparts of the city. Aboulfeda, who was present at this siege, speaks of one of these machines which a hundred chariots were scarcely sufficient to transport.