been the reckoning that the Greeks would have had to pay,
peradventure, if this company had come upon them, but they did
not come in time. By the wisdom and by the prudence of Nabunal,
they forestalled them and kept them without. When the
reinforcements see that they are shut out, then they remain idle,
for they see well that by attacking they will be able to
accomplish nought in the matter. Then there rises a mourning and
a cry of women and of little children, of old men and of youths,
so great that if it had thundered from the sky those within the
castle would not have heard aught of it. The Greeks greatly
rejoice thereat; for now they all know of a surety that never by
any chance will the count escape being taken. They bid four of
them mount in haste to the battlements of the wall to see that
those without do not from any quarter, by any stratagem or trick,
press into the castle to attack them. The sixteen have returned
to the ten who are fighting. Now was it bright daylight, and now
the ten had forced their way into the keep, and the count, armed
with an axe, had taken his stand beside a pillar where he defends
himself right fiercely. He cleaves asunder all who come within
his reach. And his followers range themselves near him; in their
last day's work they take such good vengeance that they spare not
their strength at all. Alexander's knights lament that there were
no more than thirteen of them left though even now there were
twenty-and-six. Alexander well-neigh raves with fury when he sees
such havoc among his men who are thus killed and wounded, but he
is not slow to revenge. He has found at hand, by his side, a long
and heavy beam, and goes to strike therewith a traitor; and
neither the foeman's shield nor hauberk availed him a whit
against being borne to the ground. After him , he attacks the
count; in order to strike well he raises the beam ; and he deals