In the exasperation of a religious warfare now extended over nearly a century these terms were very merciful. It may be said that this mercy was the right of a people who submitted to the invader, and that in the days of Godfrey and Peter the Hermit the defenders had resisted to the last. It is enough to answer that the capitulation of the Latins was a superfluous ceremony and that Saladin knew it to be so, while, if the same submission had been offered to the first crusaders, it would have been sternly and fiercely refused. Four days were allowed to the people to prepare for their departure. On the fifth they passed through the camp of the enemy, the women carrying or leading their children, the men bearing such of their household goods as they were able to move. On the approach of the Queen and her ladies in the garb and with the gestures of suppliants Saladin himself came forward, and with genuine courtesy addressed to them words of encouragement and consolation. Cheered by his generous language, they told him that for their lands, their houses, and their goods they cared nothing. Their prayer was that he would restore to them their fathers, their husbands, and their brothers. Saladin granted their request, added his alms for those who had been left orphans or destitute by the war, and remitted a portion of the ransom appointed for the poor. In this way the number of those who remained unredeemed was reduced to eleven or twelve thousand; and Saracenic slavery, although degrading, was seldom as cruel as the slavery which had but as yesterday been extinguished by the most fearful of recent wars. The entry of Saladin into Jerusalem was accompanied by the usual signs of triumph. Amid the waving of banners and the clash of martial music he advanced to the Mosque of Omar, on the summit of which the Christian cross still flashed in the clear air. A wail of agony burst from the Christians who were present as this emblem was hurled down to the earth and dragged through the mire. For two days it underwent this indignity, while the mosque was purified from its defilements by streams of rosewater, and dedicated afresh to the worship of the one God adored by Islam. The crosses, the relics, the sacred vessels of the Christian sanctuaries, which had been carefully stowed away in four chests, had fallen into the hands of the conquerors, and it was the wish of Saladin to send them to the Caliph of the Prophet as the proudest trophies of his victory. Even this wish he generously consented to forego. The chests were left in the keeping of the patriarch, and the price put upon them, fifty-two thousand golden bezants, was paid by Richard of England.