"Sequere!" (follow) cried the King, who usually spoke Latin to the ecclesiastical dignitaries. They rode through the camp, finding the ways everywhere crowded with men, whom some of the officers were trying to reduce to order, while others, still busy attiring themselves, were of opinion that they would be in plenty of time if they made their appearance when the whole army was mounted. The Templars were first on horseback. Their white mantles, with the large red cross upon them, were blowing about in the keen wind, and displaying the steel breastplates beneath, their martial appearance being enhanced by their heavy helmets, which covered the whole head and face, with the exception of narrow slits through which they breathed and saw. As the King rode up to them, the wind blew out the folds of their white banner, and showed its double-armed cross of blood-red. All this time the Mongols had been drawing nearer and nearer, like an advancing wall, so close were their ranks. And now like a storm of hail the arrows began to fall upon the half-asleep, half-tipsy, and wholly bewildered men in camp. Most were mounted now, but the confusion was indescribable. There were grooms with led horses looking for their masters, masters looking for chargers and servants, and generals looking for their banderia. There was shouting, running to and fro, and such confusion and hurly-burly that the King had great difficulty in making his orders understood. He galloped from one squadron to another, amid a cloud of falling arrows and spears, doing all that in him lay to organise the troops. Men were falling on all sides around him, more than one arrow had struck his own armour; the battle had begun, and blood was flowing in streams before the army had been able so much as to get out of camp. At last a dash was made down the narrow ways between the tents and the hastily uncoupled waggons; and then with the rage, not the courage, of despair, every leader wanted to rush upon the enemy straight away without waiting for orders, or heeding any but his own followers. "Stop!" cried Béla, hurrying up to them with the Palatine, and a few men who were hardly able to force their way after him. "Stop! Wait for the word of command!" But no one even saw, no one heard him. Leaders and men had most of them lost their heads, and the few disorderly squadrons which succeeded in reaching the Mongols were immediately surrounded and overwhelmed. The great black crescent was growing more and more dense and solid; there was no way of eluding it, no hope of escape. Bishop Ugrin was well-nigh beside himself; and he poured forth now blessings, now execrations, as the distracted troops rushed aimlessly hither and thither, between the tents and their ropes, and down the narrow passages. They were completely entangled as in a net; to form them up in order was an impossibility; and a deadly cloud of spears and arrows was continuously poured upon them by the Mongols.