y
need divine help.

King Richard did all that valor and kindness could prompt for the
protection and aid of his people. He led the van and was ever in the
front of every fight, heedless of danger. In one of these battles he was
painfully wounded. In another combat that French knight, William des
Barres, who had incurred the king's displeasure at Messina,
distinguished himself so greatly by his valor that he was fully restored
to the favor and friendship of Richard. The king caused the pilgrims
who fell from exhaustion or wounds to be carried to the ships and thus
saved from death at the hands of Saladin.

When the exhausted Crusaders reached the plain of Arsur, Saladin, with a
vast host of Saracens, hemmed in and attacked the Christian army. Never
was there a more terrible battle. All day it raged, so furiously that
the old chronicler confesses that "in the stress and bitter peril of
that day, there was not one who did not wish himself safe at home with
his pilgrimage finished." At one time the Hospitallers who were
defending the rear, and who had been forbidden by Richard to charge the
enemy, were so harassed by the Turks that they sent and besought the
king's permission to attack the Saracens. But he forbade the move,
commanding them to close their lines and wait in patience. Finally these
tormented knights, stuck full of arrows, beaten with mallets, pierced by
lances, crushed by maces, became frenzied with rage and shame at their
inaction. They cried aloud, "Alas! we shall be convicted of cowardly
sloth and disgraced forevermore!" Then, suddenly, exasperated beyond
endurance, they faced about, and with a loud shout, "Holy Sepulchre aid
us!" charged furiously into the midst of the infidels. Hundreds they
slew, but their disobedient act threw the entire army into confusion.

Coeur-de-Lion, seeing this, put spurs to Favelle and galloped into the
ranks of the Hospitallers. Then he bore down upon the Turks, "thundering
against them, and mightily astonishing them by the blows that he dealt."
Right and left they fell. Pressing on furiously and alone, Richard cut a
wide path for himself through the Turkish ranks, brandishing his sword
and mowing them down like grass before the sickle. For half a mile the
ground was strewn with the bodies of those who dared to oppose the
irresistible warrior. At last the terrified Turks fled in every
direction before the attack of Richard. In vain Saladin strove to rally
the Saracens. In