themselves, so that they may take them unawares and likewise find
them unarmed; and they send forth their men whom they had divided
into five bands. Some kept beside the wood; others came along the
river; the third placed themselves in the plain; and the fourth
were in a valley; and the fifth battalion spurs along the moat
that surrounded a rock, for they thought to swoop down
impetuously among the tents. But they have not found a road that
they could follow, or a way that was not barred; for the king's
men block their way as they very proudly defy them and reproach
them with treason. They engage with the iron heads of their
lances, so that they splinter and break them; they come to close
quarters with swords; and champion strikes champion to the ground
and makes him bite the dust; each side strikes down its foes, and
as fiercely as lions devouring whatsoever they can seize rush on
their prey; so fiercely do they rush on their foe--aye, and more
fiercely. On both sides, of a truth, there was very great loss of
life at that first attack; but reinforcements come for the
traitors, who defend themselves very fiercely, and sell their
lives dear when they can keep them no longer. On four sides they
see their battalions coming to succour them; and the king's men
gallop upon them as fast as they can spur. They rush to deal them
such blows on the shields, that together with the wounded they
have overthrown more than five hundred of them. The Greeks spare
them not at all. Alexander is not idle, for he exerts himself to
act bravely. In the thickest of the fray he rushes so impetuously
to smite a traitor, that neither shield nor hauberk availed one
whit to save that traitor from being thrown to the ground. When
Alexander has made a truce with him forsooth, he pays his
attentions to another--attentions in which he does not waste or
lose his pains. He serves him in such valiant sort that he rends