The castle of the Templars, in which all the knights who had escaped the steel of the Saracens had taken refuge, was soon the only place in the city that held out. The sultan having granted them a capitulation, sent three hundred Mussulmans to execute the treaty. Scarcely had these entered one of the principal towers, the tower of the grand-master, than they began to outrage the women who had taken refuge there. This violation of the rights of war irritated the Christian warriors to such a degree, that all the Saracens who had entered the tower were instantly immolated to their too just vengeance. The angry sultan ordered the siege to be prosecuted against the Christians in their last asylum, and that all should be put to the sword. The knights of the Temple and their companions defended themselves for several days: at length the tower of the grand-master was undermined, and fell at the very moment the Mussulmans were mounting to an assault: they who attacked it and they who defended it were equally crushed by its fall; women, children, Christian warriors, all who had come to seek refuge in the house of the Templars, perished, buried beneath the ruins. Every church of Ptolemaïs was plundered, profaned, and then given up to the flames. The sultan ordered all the principal edifices, with the towers and ramparts, to be demolished. The Mussulman soldiers expressed their joy by ferocious clamours; which joy formed a horrible contrast with the desolation of the conquered. Amidst the tumultuous scenes of victory were mingled the screams of women, upon whom the barbarians were committing violence in their camp, and the cries of little children, borne away into slavery. A distracted multitude of fugitives, driven from ruin to ruin, and finding no place of refuge, directed their course to the tent of the sultan, to implore his mercy; Chalil distributed these Christian supplicants among his emirs, who caused them all to be massacred. Macrisi makes the number of these unhappy victims amount to ten thousand. After the taking and the destruction of Ptolemaïs, the sultan sent one of his emirs with a body of troops to take possession of the city of Tyre; this city, seized with terror, opened its gates without resistance. The conquerors likewise possessed themselves of Berytus, Sidon, and all the Christian cities along the coast. These cities, which had not afforded the least succour to Ptolemaïs, in the last great struggle, and which believed themselves protected by a truce, beheld their population massacred, dispersed, and led into slavery; the fury of the Mussulmans extended even to the stones, they seemed to wish to destroy the very earth which the Christians had trod upon; their houses, their temples, the monuments of their piety, their valour and their industry, everything was condemned to perish with them by the sword or by fire.