courage. Yet the host is driven back upon the river, and is in desperate straits. Joinville and his knights defend a bridge over a tributary, which helps to check the Saracen advance, and affords an uncertain means of safety to the French. But there is no cessation of the Saracen attack with bows and spears. The knights seemed full of arrows. Joinville saved his life with an arrow-proof Saracen vest, "so that I was wounded by their arrows only in five places"! One of Joinville's own stout burgesses, bearing his lord's banner on a lance, helped in the charges upon the enemy. In the melée up speaks the good Count of Soissons, whose cousin Joinville had married. "He joked with me and said: 'Seneschal, let us whoop after this canaille; for by God's coif (his favourite oath) we shall be talking, you and I, about this day in the chambers of the ladies.'"
At last, the arbalests were brought out from the camp, and the Saracens drew off—fled, says the Sire de Joinville. And the king was there, and
"I took off his casque, and gave him my iron cap, so that he might get some air. And then comes brother Henry de Ronnay, Prevost of the Hospital, to the king when he had passed the river, and kisses his mailed hand. And the king asked him whether he had news of the Count of Artois, his brother; and he said that he had indeed news of him, for he was sure that his brother the Count of Artois was in Paradise. 'Ha! sire,' said the Prevost, 'be of good cheer; for no such honour ever came to a king of France as is come to you. For to fight your enemies you have crossed a river by swimming, have discomfited your enemies and driven them from the field, and taken their engines and tents, where you will sleep this night.' And the king replied that God be adored for all that He gave; and then the great tears fell from his eyes."
One need not follow on to the ill ending of the campaign, when king and knights all had to yield themselves prisoners, in most uncertain captivity. The Saracen Emirs conspired and slew their Sultan; the prisoners' lives hung on a thread; and when the terms were arranging for the delivery and ransom of the king, his own scruples nearly proved fatal. For the Emirs, after they had made their oath, wished the king to swear, and put his seal to a parchment,
