emir, immediately prepared to enter into an agreement, and soon
accepted our men and their banners in the city.

Meanwhile duke Godfrey, Bohemund and the count of Flanders had
reached Laodicia.[194] But Bohemund, impatient at being separated
from his beloved Antioch, left his companions and returned to her.
With equal desire, the others set out to besiege a city called Gibel.
[195] Rumor reached count Raymond of Saint-Gilles that a huge force
of pagans had assembled to wage war against him. He quickly called
all the leaders of his army together, and asked them what should be
done. The group replied that there was nothing to be done in these
circumstances, except to call for help from their companions on the
Lord's journey. He accepted and quickly carried out this plan. When
the leaders, that is duke Godfrey and Robert of Flanders, found out
that their companions were in trouble, they made an agreement with
the ruler of the city of Gibel, who gave them magnificent gifts of
horses and gold, and they gave up the siege of the city, and went off
to bring help to the count. Their expectation of waging war was
disappointed, however, and they all decided to go back to the siege
of the fort at Archas. They gave themselves to the project
energetically, and a short time later undertook an expedition against
the inhabitants of Tripoli, whom they found ready for battle, with an
army of Turks, Saracens, and Arabs lined up in front of the walls of
the city. Our men attacked them vigorously and compelled them to
take refuge in flight. The result was not merely a carnage of the
nobles of the city, but wholesale slaughter, to the point that the
waves of the river that ran through the city were died red with their
blood, and the sewers were stained with this foulness. From that
point on a day of no commerce[196] arose in the minds of the pagans,
and the hearts of those who survived were so riddled with fear that