Between the fleet and the shore five armed galleys lay in the harbour. On the shore Isaac’s troops were drawn up behind a barricade composed of every bit of wood that the town could supply, doors and window-frames or shutters, barrels and casks, shields and bucklers, pieces of old ships and boats, planks, steps, benches, boxes, all piled up along the water’s edge.[600] At the back of the troops was the fortified town, overtopped by a lofty castle or citadel built on the rock.[601] The Crusaders could land only by means of their boats. Knights and crossbowmen hurriedly obeyed the king’s order, and all weary and worn with long tossing on the sea and laden with their heavy armour and cumbrous weapons, crowded into the tiny cockle-shells[602] to join battle as foot-soldiers with an army of which part at least was well provided with good horses and mules, and which, moreover, was on its own soil; “but,” as one of the pilgrims says, “we knew the most about war.” Richard’s crossbowmen opened the fight by shooting at the enemy’s galleys; “there were some who did not miss their aim,” says the same eye-witness; the Greek sailors in a panic leaped into the water, and while they were struggling there their ships were captured and taken outside the harbour to be guarded by the English fleet. Meanwhile the king, when he saw his comrades struggling to land from the boats under a storm of arrows, “leaped from his boat into the sea and made for the Greeks, and assailed them.” His men followed his example and drove the Greeks back, some into the town, more into the fields. Isaac took to flight; Richard, running after him, caught a horse “with a sack attached to its saddle, and stirrups of cord,” sprang on its back, and shouted “Emperor! come and joust!” But Isaac “had no mind to joust,” and continued his flight.[603] The town of Limasol now submitted to Richard, and he brought his sister and his bride ashore.[604] That same night the horses were [Sidenote: _May 7_] landed and exercised; and next morning Richard with a small force set out in search of the enemy. A party of them was soon found in an olive garden, dislodged, and chased till the main body suddenly came into view. Then Richard, having with him at the moment only fifty knights, called a halt. Meanwhile the shouts of the Greeks whom he had been chasing reached the ears of Isaac, half a league in advance, where he had stopped to dine and sleep, for he had no idea that the Franks possessed any horses. He and his escort climbed a hill “to see what their folk would do.” All they did was to keep turning about and shooting and shouting back at the little band of Franks, who stood motionless. One Hugh de la Mare, who though he bore arms was a clerk, said to the king, “Come away, sire, their numbers are too overwhelming.” “Get you to your own writing-business, sir clerk, and leave matters of chivalry to us,” retorted Richard. He knew that reinforcements