He was certainly in sorry case, for he had no clothing save for the steel hauberk, which the Saracen knights, pitying his condition, exchanged for a fur-lined coverlet and a white belt, in which he girt himself for lack of proper clothes. Still under the protection of "his Saracen," Joinville saw with sad eyes the slaughter of the sick upon the bank and in the boats, and was himself subjected to a sore trial of faith. For his protector, who was evidently a man of some authority, tried to tempt him to embrace the religion of Islam by causing all his mariners to be brought before him, telling him that they had all denied their faith. "But I told him never to place confidence in them, for lightly as they had left us, so lightly, if time and opportunity occurred, would they leave their new masters. And he answered that he agreed with me; for that Saladin was wont to say that never did one see a bad Christian become a good Saracen, or a bad Saracen become a good Christian. "After these things he caused me to be mounted on a palfrey and to ride by his side. And we passed over a bridge of boats and went to Mansourah, where the King and his people were prisoners. And we came to the entrance of a great pavilion, where the Sultan's scribes were; and there they wrote down my name. Then my Saracen said to me, 'Lord, I shall not follow you further, for I cannot; but I pray you, lord, always to keep hold of the hand of the child you have with you, lest the Saracens should take him from you.'" Truly, in his case, for the sick and sorry Joinville, as well as for the protection he provided for the little lad, {238} the "child called Bartholomew," that unknown Saracen showed himself worthier of the name of Christian than many of those who fought under the banner of the Cross. When the French lord entered the pavilion with his little charge, he found it full of his brother barons, "who made such joy that we could not hear one another speak, for they thought they had lost me." Joy was soon turned to grief, however, for many of their number were taken by the Saracens into an adjoining courtyard and asked, "Wilt thou abjure thy faith?" "Those who would not abjure were set to one side, and their heads were cut off, and those who abjured were set on the other side." Then the Sultan sent to ask what terms they were willing to make. "Would you give, for your deliverance, any of the castles belonging to the barons oversea?" But they replied that they had no power over these castles, which belonged to their sovereign King. Then he asked if they would surrender any of the castles belonging to the Knights Templars and Hospitallers. But they answered that this could not be, for when the knights of the Temple or the Hospital were appointed to these castles, they were made to swear, on holy relics, that they would not surrender any of them for man's deliverance.