So Butumites and his fellows deposited the money in the bishop’s residence at Tripoli, as we have said. But on Balduinus’ hearing of these ambassadors’ arrival in Tripoli, he at once, through desire for the money, sent his own cousin Simon to forestall their coming and invite them. They with Pelctranus’ consent left the money behind there and accompanied Simon who had been sent from Jerusalem and found Balduinus besieging Tyre. He received them with pleasure and shewed them much friendliness, and as they had reached him on the Carnival, he kept them there through the whole of Lent Whilst he, as we said, was besieging Tyre.
Now this city was protected by impregnable walls as well as by three outworks which enclosed it in a circle. For the outmost circle encompassed the second, and this in its turn the innermost or third one. They were like three circles, enclosing each other and set like girdles round the city. Balduinus knew well that he must first destroy these outworks and only then take the city; for they were like corselets placed in front of Tyre and hindered the siege.
After tearing down its battlements
He had already destroyed this first and second belt by means of machines of destruction and was at work on the third, but after tearing down its battlements he had grown idle, for he could have taken this one too, if he had set his mind to it. But, thinking that after this he could ascend into the city by the help of a few ladders, he lost interest in the siege, just as if he already had the town in his power.
This fact brought salvation to the Saracens; and the man who had had victory almost in his hand, was utterly beaten off from it, and the men who were inside the net, escaped from its meshes. For the interval spent by Balduinus in idleness was most diligently used by them as a time of recovery.
They devised the following cunning trick. To all seeming they had an eye to making terms of peace and sent embassies to Balduinus about it; but in reality while the terms of peace were under discussion, they were preparing their defence, and while they kept him buoyed up with hope they were forming machinations against him. For having noticed his great slackness in the war, and also that the soldiers outside the walls had lost heart, one night they filled a number of clay [366] jars full of liquid pitch, and hurled them down on to the engines standing round the city. As the jars were necessarily broken to pieces in their fall, the liquid was poured all over the woodwork, and on to that they threw lighted torches.
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