It would be a waste of time to tell in detail how the assailants again and again repeated the same manoeuvre, until their Christian opponents were reduced to a handful, when at length the Turks changed their tactics and suddenly charged with all their force.
All would have been over with the Crusaders, crushed beneath the weight of numbers, in spite of their superior weapons, at close quarters. All seemed ended; the young knight, indeed, protected by his excellent armour, still fought with all the valour of his Norman race--fought like a paladin of romance--when--
A sudden cry, "Holy Cross to the rescue!" and a gallant band of light horsemen charged the Infidels in the rear.
The assailants became the assailed, and fled in all directions.
"Rise up, sir knight--for knight you should be," said a stern manly voice; and a warrior of noble mien, whose features were yet hidden behind his visor, raised the youthful hero from the ground.
[CHAPTER XXVI]. "QUANTUM MUTATUS AB ILLO HECTORE."
An hour had passed away since the conflict had ceased, and all was again peaceful and still. The Christian dead were buried; the Moslems yet dotted the plain with prostrate corpses, whose unclosed and glassy eyes met the gazer in every direction.
Of these the Crusaders reckoned little, nor did the ghastly spectacle at all disturb their rest. They sorrowed, indeed, for their own comrades; but when the parting prayers were breathed over their desert graves, they dismissed even them from their thoughts.
"They have given their lives in a noble cause, and the saints will take good care of them and make their beds in Paradise," was the general sentiment.
And now the fire was rekindled, the wine skins passed round, the venison steaks again placed on the glowing embers, and they refreshed the inner man, with appetites sharpened by their desperate exertions in the late struggle.