"Hell and Eblees are behind you! Victory or Paradise before you! Forward!"
"Stand fast, men of Auvergne!" rang the Norman's command; and every lance was braced when the third shock smote them. No charging, recoiling, countercharging, in this supreme wrestle between Christ and Mohammed. The dead piled themselves higher, higher. The desert steeds were spitted like birds on the Frankish lances. The stoutest spears shivered like reeds, and targets were cleft as wicker; but the hand-to-hand combat never slackened. Kerbogha was throwing into the press all his numbers. Again and again Richard Longsword, with Gaston of Béarn, the Count of Die, and Raimbaut of Orange, who fought under Adhemar's banner, charged out, and did deeds of valor to be forgotten only with the last jongleur. Each time, as the foe gave way, the hard-pressed Christians set up their Laus Deo, dreaming they had the victory. But each time the infidels surged back to the onset; pressing closer, smiting harder, and drowning the Crusaders' prayer to Our Lady with their mad "Allah! Allah!"
Richard, who fought about the Holy Lance, twice saw it reel in the hands of Raymond of Agiles, as fifty unbelievers pressed close. But the Christian footmen around it were a living wall, and not a dervish who put out his hands to grasp the lance turned back alive. Still the battle wavered. Rumors came down the line, now that Godfrey on the centre was victorious, now that Bohemond was desperately beset by Kilidge Arslan. Richard looked to his men; gaps in the lines. Brave fellows whom he loved well were moaning or speechless under those red heaps. But the infidels were still thronging in. The gaps were closed. The fight raged as though the blood spilled were but oil cast into a furnace.
And presently as Richard fought around the lance, he saw a stately figure in gilded armor that he knew well despite the closed helmet,—saw it come pressing through the ranks of the Moslems.
"Ho! Iftikhar Eddauleh," rang the Norman's challenge, as the roar of the conflict lulled for a twinkling, "face to face, and man to man!"
The only answer by the Ismaelian was a lowered lance, and Rollo flew out to greet the charge. For a moment those standing by gave place. They met unhindered. Under the shock each lance flew to splinters, and the good steeds were flung on their haunches.
"Again!" burst from the emir, as his cimeter glanced in the sun. "Again!" And Richard with Trenchefer rode straight at him, the unspeakable hate blinding to all things save his foe. Three times they fenced, and the sparks flew at every stroke. With the fourth, Trenchefer sheared off the black plumes on the Ismaelian's crest. A sweeping blow from Iftikhar answered, but Richard's stout shield parried it.
"God wills it! St. Julien and Mary Kurkuas!" shouted the Norman, flinging his old battle-cry in the face of his mortal foe. But the ruling powers would not let these mad spirits fight longer. Suddenly, in a way none could foresee, the line of battle, as it will, swayed in a great shock; and here Moslems were thrown back, here forward, and comrades were torn asunder. The two were caught in the eddy and whirled wide apart, bitterly against their wills.
"The lance! The lance is in danger!" the Christians were shouting; and Richard saw the holy standard sink out of sight in the seething vortex of battling men and beasts.
"Rescue, rescue, Christian cavaliers!" Bishop Adhemar was moaning; and all unarmed as he was, the prelate was about to thrust himself from behind the protecting shield wall into the death-press. But Gaston of Béarn and Die and Orange, as well as Longsword, were before him. Richard saw Gaston snatch the lance out of the clutch of two Turkomans who grasped it, and hew down both—a blow for each. Then the lance was raised once more, and all Crusaders praised God, and fought more stoutly.