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On reaching that city, Melikul Salih expended his remaining strength in rallying his army and strengthening the fortifications, and at the same time sent men to attack the Crusaders in their camp, to kill the Franks and cut off their heads, promising a golden besant for every head brought to him.
All these precautions, which were the work of the sultana, were skilfully taken, and for a time the Saracens hoped that Melikul Salih might yet recover from his malady, and save them from the foe by whom they were threatened. Ere long, however, suspicion was aroused, and it became more and more difficult to conceal the truth.
It was asserted that many of the emirs were doomed to die on a certain day; and that, in the midst of a nocturnal orgy, Touran Chah had cut off the tops of the flambeaux in his chamber, crying 'Thus shall fly the heads of all the Mamelukes. In order to avenge herself for the neglect to which she was exposed under the new reign, Chegger Edour, the sultana who had played so important a part in the last days of Melikul Salih, exerted her eloquence to stimulate the discontent; and the emirs and Mamelukes, having formed a conspiracy, only awaited a convenient opportunity to complete their projects of vengeance at a blow.
In order to ascertain we must, in imagination, pass from the camp at Damietta to the palace of Cairo. Melikul Salih was under the influence of a malady which his physicians pronounced to be incurable. On that point there was no mistake.
At this crisis, however, a woman, whose great ability enabled her to comprehend the emergency and to deal with it, suggested measures for averting the ruin with which the empire of Egypt was menaced. Her name was Chegger Eddour, and she is said to have been an Armenian. She had originally been brought to Cairo as merchandise, and purchased by Melikul Salih as a slave.
Moreover, she impressed upon them the necessity of concealing the death of her husband till the arrival of his successor. The policy she recommended was adopted. Orders were still issued in Melikul Salih's name; the Mamelukes still guarded the gates of the palace as if he had been living; and prayers for his recovery were still offered up in the mosques, where the Moslems worshipped.
WHILE the Crusaders were preparing to leave Damietta, march up the Nile, and attack Cairo, Melikul Salih, after struggling desperately with the great destroyer, yielded to his fate, and breathed his last at Mansourah. The death of the sultan was regarded by the emirs as most untimely; for his son, Touran Chah, was then in Mesopotamia, and they were apprehensive of the most serious troubles.
Nevertheless her influence daily increased; and the Arabian historians, while eloquent in praise of her courage, agree in saying, that 'no woman surpassed her in beauty, and no man excelled her in genius. No sooner did Melikul Salih depart this life, than Chegger Eddour assembled the principal emirs at Mansourah, and made them acknowledge Touran Chah as sultan.
Melikul Salih was then at Cairo; and almost every man in Fakreddin's army knew that Melikul Salih was dying. ABOUT a mile from the sea, on the northern bank of the second mouth of the Nile, stood the city of Damietta, with its mosques, and palaces, and towers, and warehouses, defended on the river side by a double rampart, and on the land side by a triple wall.
At such a crisis, the presence of the sultan was necessary to sustain their spirits, and stimulate their fanaticism. Now at that time Melikul Salih was Sultan of Egypt; but he was not at Damietta, and his absence caused much uncertainty and dismay among the warriors assembled to defend his dominions.
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