whole day our men pursued them very closely, piling up the spoils
they took from the fleeing enemy; and so, after drawing considerable
amounts of blood, they took comfort in the copious sums of money, in
the precious garments, and in the herds of cattle which they took
from the fleeing men. From the third until the ninth hour the
destruction, or rather Arabian slaughter, of this battle raged. Two
leaders of distinguished name, Geoffrey of Mont Scabieuse, and
William, brother of Tancred, and many others whose names are
entrusted to the notice of God alone, died there. Here we can
clearly see the signs of Christian power; and if we marvel at the
inequality of a battle between so few men and so many, we must
attribute the results entirely to the aid of Christ. For if in the
ancient text it is said of the Jews who had not yet separated from
God, "one will pursue thousand, and two will put to flight ten
thousand,"[134] then it seems to me no less true of this victory,
since human understanding cannot hope to fathom how so many men could
be defeated by so few. But perhaps someone may object, arguing that
the enemy forces were merely peasants, scum herded together from
everywhere. Certainly the Franks themselves, who had undergone such
great danger, testified that they could have known of no race
comparable to the Turks, either in the liveliness of spirit, or
energy in battle. When the Turks initiated a battle, our men were
almost reduced to despair by the novelty of their tactics in battle;
they were not accustomed to their speed on horseback, nor to their
ability to avoid our frontal assaults. We had particular difficulty
with the fact that they fired their arrows only when fleeing from the
battle. It was the Turk's opinion, however, that they shared an
ancestry with the Franks, and that the highest military prowess
belonged particularly to the Turks and Franks, above all other people.