Hospitallers did the same, while the Knights Tem plars opposed such a flagrant breach of the recently made treaty. October, 1168, a little over a year after his quitting Egypt, saw Amalric back there, and in mid-November he appeared before the walls of Cairo. It should not have been difficult to take the city, but Shawer took advantage of the King's delay to open negotiations with Nur ed-din. In December Shirkuh was back and Amalric had to abandon the siege to meet him. The former managed to evade the King, who found the Egyptians against him because of his brutal massacre of the populations of towns captured by him, and he finally returned to Palestine to meet the ever mounting problems created by the Saracens there. More than ever Saladin had resisted his uncle's determination to have him on his staff on this expedition, and only Nur ed-din's intervention had stilled his opposition. " By Allah," he is quoted as saying, " if the sovereignty of Egypt were offered me, I would not go." Strange words in the light of what happened. His excuse was his trying experience in Alexandria, a mere trifle compared to what he faced willingly over and over again in the years to come. Many terrible trials had been met and overcome when one day he turned to Beha ed-din and said : " Of all men, I was the one who least wished to accompany the expedition, and it was not of my own accord that I went with my uncle." Shirkuh entered Cairo in triumph, amid the acclaim of the populace, who hailed him as a deliverer, and the