Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/116

90 the command, after the death of Sacadeen, killed in the previous engagement. Turning fiercely on their pursuers, they soon threw them into confusion, and drove them in headlong flight back into Massoura. Here it was found that the inhabitants, recovering from their first consternation, had manned the walls of the place and were opposing the entrance of the fugitives. A street fight ensued, in which the superior discipline of the knights was of but little avail, and the detachment was practically annihilated. The count of Artois, Longspee, and a large number of knights were killed, whilst the Master of the Hospital, Chateauneuf, fell prisoner into the hands of the Saracens.

Louis beheld with the most lively grief and indignation this disastrous issue to a combat commenced under such glorious auspices. Crossing the ford with the remainder of his army he lost no time in advancing to the rescue. Here he was met by the Saracens, led on by Bendocdar, now completely rallied from their panic, flushed with their subsequent success, and burning to wipe out the remembrance of their ignominious flight. The fight was long and obstinate, and closed without any decided advantage to either side. Still, unquestionably the moral victory was with the Saracens, who reaped all the beneficial results of the day. Hemmed in on the ground which he occupied, Louis found himself cut off from all supplies on the side of Damietta by a Saracen force despatched for that purpose by Bendocdar, and it was not long before the army fell into a very similar predicament to that of John of Brienne. Pestilence broke out in the camp and decimated his troops. Unable to retreat as long as a Saracen force interposed between himself and Damietta, Louis in this strait meditated a sudden attack in that quarter, trusting that by taking the enemy unawares he and his enfeebled army might be enabled to cut their way through. Before he could carry this intention into effect, he was himself attacked in his intrenchments by the whole Turkish army. Wasted with disease and enfeebled by starvation his troops could offer but a very feeble resistance, nor was all the chivalric daring which on that day distinguished his own conduct able to avert the catastrophe. Disdaining to seek safety in flight at the cost of abandoning his followers, he maintained