next day the Turks learned that some of our leaders had left the
siege and gone to the Gate of Saint Simeon. They prepared a large
force and quickly moved to encounter those who were returning from
the Gate. When they saw the count and Bohemund, together with a
large military force, coming towards them, they began to shout and
utter hideous noises. They surrounded our men on all sides,
inflicting terrible wounds on them, hurling spears, firing arrows,
and savagely killing them. Their attack was so severe that our men
scarcely were able to escape into the nearby mountains, or wherever
else escape seemed possible. Those who were, in manner of speaking,
swifter than winged horses, escaped; anyone whom the swift pagans
found slower, however, died. In this disaster, as it was considered,
a thousand of our men perished; those who were found, because of
their proven faith, to be acceptable, received glorious rewards after
death for their sufferings. For those who needed to expiate their
sins, the outpouring of blood alone was the most potent way to purge
their guilt. In great anguish because of such a misfortune, and
separated from his companions because he had taken a shorter road,
Bohemund, with a few of his knights, whom he found banded together,
returned to the siege. Driven to distraction by the death of so many
of their own men, sobbing bitterly, crying out to Christ, they moved
out against those who had inflicted such pain upon them, and reached
the field of battle. Confident because of their recent victory, the
cohorts of the enemy stood firm, expecting to perform exactly as they
boasted they had performed against Bohemund and the count. Against
these proponents of evil the loving God in his mercy arranged proper
remedy for his suffering people. Therefore these famous men, moved
by grief and compassion for their dead brothers, with the sign of the
Lord's cross fixed on their foreheads and in their hearts, hurled
themselves with all their strength against the enemy. As soon as