Chatillon's fiery valour. At one moment he
rushed like lightning among the Saracens, scattered them, and cut them
down. Then after reining back to the wall to draw out the arrows and
darts that adhered to his cuirass, he returned to the charge, rising in
his stirrups, and shouting--'Chatillon, knights--Chatillon to the
rescue.'

Meanwhile Bisset exerted himself with no less courage and prowess.
Scorning his danger, and scorning his foes, he charged among the
Saracens, with shouts of--'Holy Cross, Holy Cross! Down with the pagan
dogs! Down with the slaves of Mahound and Termagaunt!' Nothing could
resist the vehemence of his attack. In vain were all attempts to drag
him from his steed. Before his mighty battle-axe the Saracens seemed to
shake and fall as corn before the reaper.

At length Chatillon, mortally wounded, dropt from his horse, and the
Saracen who had wounded him springing forward seized the French knight's
steed, which was one sheet of blood and foam. Bisset cleft the Saracen's
skull to the teeth, and laughed defiantly as he avenged the fall of his
comrade-in-arms.

But Bisset was now alone; and his situation was so utterly desperate,
that any ordinary man, even in that feudal and fighting age, would have
relinquished all hope and yielded to fate. The English knight had no
inclination to do anything of the kind. Rapidly his eye measured the
ground; as rapidly his brain calculated the chances of reaching the
orange grove; and as rapidly he arrived at the conclusion that he could
cut his way through the crowd. No sooner had he settled this than he
wasted not a moment in hesitation. Drawing back towards the wall, and
halting for a moment, with his face to his foes, to breathe his panting
steed, he once more, with battle-axe in hand, charged forward upon his
now recoiling foes, but this time not to return. Nothing daunted by the
darts and arrows that flew around him, he deliberately pursued the
course which his eye had marked out, literally felling to the earth all
who attempted to stop his progress, but skillfully avoiding foes whom it
was not necessary to encounter. Only a man of the highest courage would
have made such an attempt: only a man of the strongest will would have
persevered.

Now Bisset had both courage and strength of will, and in spite of all
the chances against him, he did reach the orange grove, and making his
way through it as well as he could, found himself in the verge of a wood
of palms