The panic, however, which had put the Mussulman troops to flight, had not at all communicated itself to the garrison of the city: this intrepid garrison offered the most vigorous resistance, and gave the army of Melic-Kamel[221] time to recover from its fright. The sultan of Damascus soon joined his brother the sultan of Cairo. Emad-eddin and the other leaders of the conspiracy were arrested and loaded with chains. Order and discipline were reëstablished among the Saracens, and the Christian army had to contend with all the united forces of the infidels, impatient to repair their check, and recover the advantages they had lost. The burning days of summer were approaching: the Nile, increased by the rains of the tropics, began to issue from its bed. The Christian army was encamped under the walls of Damietta, having the lake Menzaleh in its rear. The Saracens came and pitched their tents at a short distance from the camp of the Christians, who, oppressed by the consuming heat of the season and the climate, were subject every day to the spirited attacks of the infidels. In one of these conflicts, the Mussulmans got possession of a bridge which the Crusaders had thrown over the Nile; the banks of the river were covered with dead, and the Christian army only owed its safety to the heroic bravery of the duke of Austria, the king of Jerusalem, and the grand masters of St. John and the Temple. Soon after, another battle was fought still more bloody than the first. In this fight, as it is described by James of Vitri, an ocular witness, not a person among the Christians was idle: the clergy were at prayers or attending the wounded; whilst the women and children carried water, wine, food, stones, and javelins, to the combatants. Whirlwinds of scorching dust arose in the air, and enveloped the two armies. The cries of the wounded and the dying, the sound of the trumpets, and the clashing of arms resounded from the neighbouring hills and from both shores of the Nile. Sometimes the Saracens were put to flight, and whole battalions, says James of Vitri, disappeared submerged in the Nile, as formerly the armies of Pharaoh perished in the Red Sea. Sometimes the Christians were repulsed in their turn, and left a great number of their warriors on the field of battle: the carnage lasted during the whole day, without either side being able to claim the victory. Whilst the two armies were contending with such fury on the banks, the Genoese and the Pisans, on board their vessels, made an attack upon the ramparts of the city. Several of their ships were consumed by the Greek fire, and the bravest of their soldiers were crushed beneath the beams and stones hurled from the top of the walls. At the approach of night the Crusaders returned to their tents, despairing of ever being able to subdue the Saracens, and reproaching each other with want of courage in this unfortunate day.