Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/111

Rh contemptuous opposition to the most experienced captains of the age.

On this occasion the result did not long remain doubtful. The valour of the Christian chivalry, though exerted to the uttermost, expended itself in vain against the almost countless swarms opposed to them. The Latin army, when drawn up in its battle array, was divided into three corps. The Hospitallers, supported by the count of Jaffa, constituted the left wing; the Templars, with the militia of the kingdom, were in the centre, and the auxiliary force of Turcoman cavalry formed the right wing. Upon this occasion those jealousies which had for so long divided the military Orders, and to a great extent neutralized all the efforts made for the restoration of the kingdom, were quelled in their zeal for the common cause, and the blood of both Hospitaller and Templar flowed freely in a common stream, a worthy sacrifice to their country and religion. For two whole days was the struggle maintained, although at its very commencement the Damascenes, either from treachery or cowardice, turned their backs upon the foe and fled ignominiously from the field. This defection left the Korasmins in a numerical superiority of at least ten to one; still the Latins stood their ground undismayed, and the scale of victory seemed for a long time almost equally balanced. It was not, however, within the power of human endurance to bear up against the interminable stream of new opponents unceasingly poured upon their exhausted ranks by the indefatigable Barbacan. At length, upon the evening of the second day, the Christian force, decimated and overpowered by the sheer weight of numbers, was compelled to give way.

Signal as was their defeat it was unaccompanied by disgrace. Still struggling, though all was lost, the broken remnants of the army refused either to fly or to yield, and there, on the ground where they stood, now strewn with the mangled corpses of their comrades, they fell, one by one, faithful, even to the end, to that holy cause which they had espoused, and to which their lives and fortunes had been consecrated. In this fatal field the Masters, both of the Hospital and Temple, found a noble grave in company with almost the entire body of their respective Orders, only thirty-three of the Templars and sixteen