pull them off. The battle went back and forth, and was hardly over
by evening. In the rear, priests, clerics, and monks, dressed in
sacred attire, each according to his rank, earnestly prayed that God
intervene by reducing the strength of the pagans, and by increasing
the strength of those who fought for the true faith. On the other
side of the siege machine, other knights were climbing ladders that
had been set in place, while the wildly energetic pagans tried to
push them off the walls. A certain Goufier, impatient with their
resistance, was the first to climb the wall, together with a very
small group of men. The inhabitants fiercely attacked these brave
men, with spears and arrows, and some of them became frightened at
this resistance, and jumped from the wall. Those who remained stood
up to the enemies' missiles, spurning flight, returning blow for blow,
while those who remained below continued to mine the wall. Soon the
inhabitants saw that they were doomed by the mining of the wall, and,
intent only on the safety of flight, climbed back down into the city.
This happened on a Sunday, while the sun was already setting in the
West, when December had reached its eleventh day. Bohemund quickly
sent an interpreter to the Saracen leaders, offering to conduct them,
together with their own knights, children, and wives, and with all
the goods and supplies they could gather, to a palace near the gate
of the city, promising to protect their lives, and to defend their
people and possessions. Having taken the city in this manner, they
took possession of everything they found in the caves and in the
homes. When night had ended and daylight began to appear, a crowd of
our people raced through the city, killing every pagan they found.
No gate of the city, no matter how small, was without a pile of dead
Saracens, and the narrow streets were impassable, because pagan
bodies obstructed the public ways. Bohemund himself attacked those
whom he had commanded to shut themselves up in the palace mentioned