The command over the surviving brethren of the order now devolved upon the Marshal, Brother Reginald de Vichier, who, collecting together the small surviving remnant of the Templars, retreated to the camp to participate in the subsequent horrors and misfortunes of the campaign. “At the end of eight or ten days,” says Joinville, “the bodies of those who had been slain and thrown into the Nile rose to the top of the water. These bodies floated down the river until they came to the small bridge that communicated with each part of our army; the arch was so low that it prevented the bodies from passing underneath, and the river was consequently covered with them from bank to bank, so that the water could not be seen.... God knows how great was the stench. I never heard that any who were exposed to this infectious smell ever recovered their health. The whole army was seized with a shocking disorder, which dried up the flesh on our legs to the bone; and our skins became tanned as the ground, or like an old boot that has long lain behind a coffer.... The barbers were forced to cut away very large pieces of flesh from the gums to enable their patients to eat; it was pitiful to hear the cries and groans, they were like the cries of women in labour.” The army attempted to retreat when retreat was almost impossible; the soldiers became dispersed and scattered; thousands died by the way-side, and thousands fell alive into the hands of the enemy, among which last were the king and Joinville. They were both attacked by the disease, and king Louis laid himself down to die in an Arab hut, where he was found and kindly treated by the Saracens. Reginald de Vichier, the Marshal of the Templars, and a few of his brethren, reached Damietta in safety, and took measures for the defence of the place. All those of the prisoners who were unable to redeem their lives by services as slaves to the conquerors, or by ransom, were inhumanly massacred, and a grim circle of christian heads decorated the walls and battlements of Cairo. The Egyptians required as the price of the liberty of the French monarch the surrender of all the fortresses of the order of the Temple in Palestine; but the king told them that the Templars were not subject to his command, nor had he any means of compelling them to give effect to such an agreement. Louis and his friend Joinville at last obtained their deliverance from captivity by the surrender of Damietta, and by the payment of two hundred thousand pieces of gold; and the liberation of the king’s brother, and of the other captive nobles and knights was to be purchased by the payment of a similar sum. The king immediately went on board the French fleet which was at anchor before Damietta, and exerted himself to raise the residue of the ransom; and all Saturday and Sunday were employed in collecting it together.