they saw this, the enemy fled towards the Pharphar river, intending
to cross the strait. In their hasty flight the mass of men was
jammed together in the attempt to cross, and as the wedge of knights
and infantry piled up in a very small space, struggling to pass each
other, men knocked each other down. Our men watched all this very
carefully, and when the crowd of fugitives seemed to thicken, a fall
was more effective than a wound. If any man fell into the water and
tried to get out either by hanging on to the columns of the bridge,
or by swimming to dry land, our men located on the shore forced him
back into the water to drown. The signs of carnage were so great
that the Pharphar seemed to flow with blood, not with water. The
sounds made there by the vanquished and the victors, by the dying and
by those who were forcing them to die, were so terrible that the
highest vault of the heavens seemed to resound with their shrieks.
The air became clouded with arrows and other kinds of missiles, and
the brightness of the solar globe was covered by a shower of flying
spears. The women of the city who were Christian stood on the
ramparts of the wall, feeding upon the sight; as they watched the
Turks perish and submit to calamity they groaned openly, but then
turned their faces away and secretly applauded the fortunate course
events had taken for the Franks. The Armenians and Syrians, although
they were Christian, were compelled to fire arrows at us; some even
did so willingly. Twelve of the principal enemy leaders, called
"satraps" in the Chaldean language, and "emirs" in the barbaric
tongue, fell in battle on this occasion, as well as many others,
amounting to perhaps 1500 of the wealthiest and most important people,
upon whom the entire defense of the city rested. Those who survived
the carnage no longer hurled their customary insults at our men;
their boisterous, scurrilous chattering ceased. On that day their
daily joy was turned into grief.