Neither army had left its ground when the clamour of many thousand voices was heard; and, like a whirlwind, the Saracen archers from Lucera poured upon the field. Crossing the little river Calora, they fell upon the French infantry with a discharge of arrows. The French, with loud cries of “Down with the Saracens! Down with the swine!” rushed furiously to meet them. The medley was terrible, and at first victory favoured the turban. Charles’s troops broke and fled, when Ruggiero San Severino rallied them, waving, by way of banner, a bloody shirt, stripped from a soldier’s corpse. Philip de Montfort brought up the reserve, and threw himself upon the Saracens, whom he cut to pieces with cries of “Montfort, chevaliers!” “Swabia, chevaliers!” replied Gualvano Lancia, who, without waiting orders from Mainfroy, hurried forward a thousand men of the best German troops. He fell upon the French, who were weary with striking, and made a great slaughter of them. Charles of Anjou, who in his part of the field performed, as usual, prodigies of valour, now left the wing he commanded and attacked Gualvano Lancia. The Germans and Saracens were cut to pieces and dispersed; but the Italian battalions, commanded by nobles of the country, had not yet shared the combat. Mainfroy had kept them as a reserve, and now called upon them to follow him. Instead of so doing, they turned their backs and fled. At the same moment a silver eagle, surmounting Mainfroy’s helm, fell and broke in pieces. At this evil omen, the son of the Hohenstauffe felt himself lost. He turned towards the faithful few who still stood by him, and said in the words of the Catholic Church: _Hoc est signum Dei_. Then, followed by Tibaldo Annibaldi, he plunged into the thickest of the hostile squadrons, and was seen no more alive. For three days nothing was heard of him, and Charles of Anjou thought he had escaped, when a soldier led his war-horse past the window of Gualvano Lancia and two other Ghibelline prisoners. On recognising the steed, the captives burst into tears, and implored the soldier, a Picard, to tell them the fate of its rider, whether prisoner, slain, or fugitive. “The Picard, having learned who the prisoners were, replied thus: ‘I will tell you the truth; during the fight, the man who mounted this horse came up, uttering terrible cries. He rushed into the mêlée, followed by another cavalier much less than himself, and fell upon us with such courage that, had he been supported by others as brave, he would have beaten us or given us much to do. I showed front to this knight and wounded his charger in the head with a lance-thrust; the horse, feeling itself wounded, threw its rider; then the _ribauds_ despoiled him of his arms and made an end of him. As his scarf was very beautiful, I took it, as well as his horse; and here they both are.’ Such was the noble end of Manfred, or Machtfried, of Stauffen, whom the French were wont to call