Defeated, shamed, bereaved--yet they ate, and, being human, could take comfort from the thought that having eaten, by the law of the Arabs, at least their lives were safe.
Saladin called Godwin and Wulf to him that they might interpret for him, and gave them food, and they also ate who were compelled to it by hunger.
"Have you seen your cousin, the princess ?" he asked; "and how found you her ?" he asked presently.
Then, remembering over what he had fallen outside her tent, and looking at those miserable feasters, anger took hold of Godwin, and he answered boldly: "Sire, we found her sick with the sights and sounds of war and murder; shamed to know also that her uncle, the conquering sovereign of the East, had slaughtered two hundred unarmed men." Wulf trembled at his words, but Saladin listened and showed no anger.
"Doubtless," he answered, "she thinks me cruel, and you also think me cruel--a despot who delights in the death of his enemies.

Yet it is not so, for I desire peace and to save life, not to destroy it.

It is you Christians who for hard upon a hundred years have drenched these sands with blood, because you say that you wish to possess the land where your prophet lived and died more than eleven centuries ago.

How many Saracens have you slain?
Hundreds of thousands of them.

Moreover, with you peace is no peace.