The Krak was the outwork dominating the plain where the Christians never made their footing good, and stood at the apex of a triangle of fortresses as remarkable as itself. From its ramparts the great white tower of Chastel-Blanc can be seen, midway between the outpost commanding the mountain passes and the base upon the sea held by the Temple; and from that tower the troop of Templars rode to relieve the knights of Saint John, on the day when the crusaders routed the conqueror Nour-ed-Din, and cut his army to pieces as it fled toward the Lake of Homs, which lies in the distance. But the white tower is unlike the donjons of other lands, and bears the imprint of the force which built it, for it is not a layman’s hold, but a church, whose windows are cut in walls thirteen feet thick, whence the dim light falls across the altar where the magicians wrought their miracles. Within easy supporting distance lay Tortosa, a walled town, the outwork of a donjon at least as strong as the Krak, and built with a perfection of workmanship, and a beauty of masonry, which proves at once the knowledge and the resources of the order. No monarch of the West could, probably, at that time have undertaken so costly an enterprise, and yet Tortosa was but one of four vast structures which lie within a few miles of each other. The place was ceded to the Temple in 1183, just at the beginning of the reign of Philip Augustus, before men dreamed of the more important French fortifications. At Margat, a day’s journey to the north, the Hospital had their base upon the sea: a stronghold whose cost must have been fabulous, for it is perched upon a crag high above the Mediterranean, and so inaccessible that it is not easy to understand how the materials for building were collected. Viollet-le-Duc, who was lost in admiration at Coucy, declared that it was colossal enough to befit a race of giants, and yet Coucy could have stood in the courtyard of Margat. The Arabs, who were excellent engineers, deemed it a masterpiece, and the Sultan Kalaoun could not endure the thought of injuring it. After he had mined the great tower and was sure of victory, he proved to the garrison his power to destroy it, in order to induce them to accept most liberal terms of surrender, and let him have the prize. Perhaps the best description ever given of the work is in a letter written by the Sultan of Hamah to his vizier to announce its fall: “The devil himself had taken pleasure in consolidating its foundations. How many times have the Mussulmans tried to reach its towers and fallen down the precipices! Markab is unique, perched on the summit of a rock. It is accessible to relief, and inaccessible to attack. The eagle and the vulture alone can fly to its ramparts.”[110] CHAPTER IV THE SECOND CRUSADE