was in failing health, and died soon after he went home. According to the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, Reginald of Sidon had taken charge in Tyre and was in the process of negotiating its surrender with Saladin. Conrad allegedly threw Saladin's banners into the ditch, and made the Tyrians swear total loyalty to him. His rise to power seems to have been less dramatic in reality. Reginald went to refortify his own castle of Belfort on the Litani River. With the support of the established Italian merchant communities in the city, Conrad re-organised the defence of Tyre, setting up a commune, similar to those he had so often fought against in Italy. When Saladin's army arrived they found the city well-defended and defiant. As the chronicler Ibn al-Athir wrote of the man the Arabs came to respect and fear as al-Markis: "He was a devil incarnate in his ability to govern and defend a town, and a man of extraordinary courage". Tyre successfully withstood the siege, and desiring more profitable conquest, Saladin's army moved on south to Caesarea, Arsuf, and Jaffa. Meanwhile, Conrad sent Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre, to the West in a black-sailed ship, bearing appeals for aid. Arabic writers claimed that he also carried propaganda pictures to use in his preaching, including one of the horses of Saladin's army stabled (and urinating) in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and another of a Saracen slapping Christ's face. In November 1187, Saladin returned for a second siege of Tyre. Conrad was still in command of the city, which was now heavily fortified and filled with Christian refugees from across the north of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This time Saladin opted for a combined ground and naval assault, setting up a blockade of the harbour. In an incident described by the Itinerarium Peregrinorum (which is generally hostile to Conrad), the Old French Continuation and Sicardus of Cremona's second chronicle (now known through quotations by Salimbene di Adam and Alberto Millioli), Saladin presented Conrad's aged father, William V of Montferrat, who had been captured at Hattin, before the walls of the city. He offered to release William and bestow great gifts upon Conrad if he surrendered Tyre. The old man told his son to stand firm, even when the Egyptians threatened to kill him. Conrad declared that William had lived a long life already, and aimed at him