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CHARLES J. ROSEBAULT.
Saladin. Prince of Chivalry
page 224
Alexandria appears to have been animated by much the same spirit as was Saladin, and allowed the homeless wanderers to camp outside the walls and furnished them with food and placed soldiers to guard them while arrangements were being made for their transportation to the Italian ports. Moreover, when the masters of the vessels sought to take advantage of them he intervened, for he would not permit that the promise of Saladin to deliver them safely in Christian territory should be broken by these robbers !
"An d when the mariners saw they could not do otherwise they said they would carry the poor outcasts," and the emir made them swear they would bring these poor people safely to their destinations, and warned them of the vengeance he would take upon them did they not abide by their oaths.
And now the Sultan was indeed surrounded by the zealous expounders of the Mohammedan laws, each eager to impress upon him his particular views of what should be done to re-dedicate the holy places to Allah and the Prophet in such manner that no vestige would remain of their profanation. The patient monarch is submerged in a turbulent sea of words, and the places of public meeting and the very streets resound with them. It takes quite a little diplomacy to keep the arguments of these zealots from degenerating into hot altercation, for what is more dangerous to peace than differences over religious interpretations at the moment when emotions run high and nerves are tense? The joy of Islam is like quicksilver and could
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