At the beginning of Advent, the king set out with his army to march against Babylon, as the count of Artois had counseled him. Not far from Damietta we came upon a stream of water which issued from the great river [Nile], and it was resolved that the army should halt for a day to dam up this branch, so that it might be crossed. The thing was done easily enough, for the arm was dammed up close to the great river. At the passage of this stream the sultan sent 500 of his knights, the best mounted in his whole army, to harass the king's troops, and retard our march. [Sidenote: A skirmish between the Saracens and the Templars] On St. Nicholas's day[455] the king gave the order to march and forbade that any one should be so bold as to sally out upon the Saracens who were before us. So it chanced that when the army was in motion to resume the march and the Turks saw that no one would sally out against them, and learned from their spies that the king had forbidden it, they became emboldened and attacked the Templars,[456] who formed the advance-guard. And one of the Turks hurled to the ground one of the knights of the Temple, right before the feet of the horse of Reginald de Bichiers, who was at that time Marshal of the Temple. When the latter saw this, he shouted to the other brethren: "Have at them, in God's name! I cannot suffer any more of this." He dashed in his spurs, and all the army did likewise. Our people's horses were fresh, while those of the Turks were already worn out. Whence it happened, as I have heard, that not a Turk escaped, but all perished, several of them having plunged into the river, where they were drowned....[457] One evening when we were on duty near the cat castles, they brought against us an engine called _pierriere_,[458] which they had never done before, and they placed Greek fire[459] in the sling of the engine. When Monseigneur Walter de Cureil, the good knight, who was with me, saw that, he said to us: "Sirs, we are in the greatest peril we have yet been in; for if they set fire to our towers, and we remain here, we are dead men, and if we leave our posts which have been intrusted to us, we are put to shame; and no one can rescue us from this peril save God. It is therefore my opinion and my advice to you that each time they discharge the fire at us we should throw ourselves upon our elbows and knees, and pray our Lord to bring us out of this danger." [Sidenote: The Saracens make use of Greek fire]