midnight
On the day when Guy Muschamp was carried off as a captive , the Constable of France was surprised by a visit from a Bedouin , and demanded his business . The Bedouin thereupon offered , for five hundred golden bezants , to point out a ford by which the Crusaders might , without danger or difficulty , cross in safety to the opposite bank . The constable at once promised the required reward , in the event of the information proving satisfactory ; but it was not till the money was told down that the Bedouin conducted him to the spot , and convinced him that the ford was there . Gladly hastening to Louis , the constable revealed the means of extricating the armed pilgrims from their embarrassment ; and the king , assembling the princes and nobles , decided on leaving the Duke of Burgundy on the Damietta side with a sufficient force to guard the camp ; and then , mastering their men and mounting their horses , they at midnight marched along the bank of the canal to the ford pointed out by the Bedouin , and awaited the break of day to dash through the water and move towards Mansourah . It was the morning of Tuesday , the 8th of February , 1250 -- Shrove Tuesday -- when the armed pilgrims , under the auspices of King Louis , halted on the Damietta side of the Achmoun , and awaited the signal to pass to that on which Mansourah was situated . Everything so far had gone quite as smoothly as could reasonably have been expected . Some horsemen , indeed , rode too near the margin of the canal , and , getting on soft and slippery ground , they and their horses fell in and were drowned .