muttering curses to himself, Gaston of Bearn pale and serious,
chewing his beard. Two more wild assaults the rearguard took stiffly, at
the third they broke in two places, but repelled the Turks. Richard,
watching like a hawk, saw his opportunity. He sent down a message to the
Duke of Burgundy, to Saint-Pol and De Charron--'Hold them yet once more;
at six blasts of my trumpet, charge.' The Duke of Burgundy, block though
he was, was prepared to obey. About him came buzzing Saint-Pol and his
friends: 'Impossible, my lord Duke, we cannot keep in our men. Attack,
attack.' Saladin was then coming on, one of his thunderous charges. 'God
strike blind those French mules!' cried Richard. 'They are out!' This
was true: from left to centre the Christian bowmen were out, the knights
pricking after them to the charge. Richard cursed them from his heart.
'Sound trumpets!' he shouted, 'we must let go.' They sounded; they ran
forward: the English first, then the Normans, Poictevins, men of Anjou
and Pisa, black Genoese--but the left had moved before them, and made
doubtful Richard's echelon. They knelt, pulled bowstrings to the ear.
The sky grew dun as the long shafts flew; the oncoming tide of men
flickered and tossed like a broken sea, and the Soldan's green banner
dipped like a reed in it. A second time the blast of arrows, like a gust
of death, smote them flat: Richard's voice rang sharply out--'Passavant,
chivalers! Sauve Anjou!'--and a young Poictevin knight, stooping low in
his saddle, went rocking down the line with words for Henry of
Champagne, who ruled the centre. The archers ran back and crouched;
Richard and his chivalry on the extreme right moved out, the next
company after him, and the next, and the next, company following
company, until, in echelon, all the long fluttering array galloped over
the marsh, overlapped and enfolded the Saracen hordes in their bright
embrace. A frenzied cry from some emir by the standard gave notice of
the danger; the bodyguard about the Soldan were seen urging him. Saladin
gave some hasty order as he rode off; Richard saw it, and tasted the
bitterness of folly. 'By God, we shall lose him--oh, bemused hog of
Burgundy!' He sent a man flying to the Duke; but it was too late.
Saladin gained the woods, and with him his bodyguard, the flower of his
state.

The Mamelukes also turned to fly. To right, to left, the mad horsemen
drove--the black, the plumed, the Nubians in yellow, the Turcomans with