Saladin set fire to the dry grass and dwarf shrubs which lay between both armies, and the wind blew the smoke and the flames directly into the faces of the military friars and their horses. The fire, the noise, the gleaming weapons, and all the accompaniments of the horrid scene, have given full scope to the descriptive powers of the oriental writers. They compare it to the last judgment; the dust and the smoke obscured the face of the sun, and the day was turned into night. Sometimes gleams of light darted like the rapid lightning amid the throng of combatants; then you might see the dense columns of armed warriors, now immovable as mountains, and now sweeping swiftly across the landscape like the rainy clouds over the face of heaven. "The sons of paradise and the children of fire," say they, "then decided their terrible quarrel; the arrows rustled through the air like the wings of innumerable sparrows, the sparks flew from the coats of mail and the glancing sabres, and the blood spurting forth from the bosom of the throng deluged the earth like the rains of heaven."... "The avenging sword of the true believers was drawn forth against the infidels; the faith of the UNITY was opposed to the faith of the TRINITY, and speedy ruin, desolation, and destruction, overtook the miserable sons of baptism!" The cowardly patriarch Heraclius, whose duty it was to bear the holy cross in front of the christian array, confided his sacred charge to the bishops of Ptolemais and Lydda,[191]--a circumstance which gave rise to many gloomy forebodings amongst the superstitious soldiers of Christ. In consequence of the treachery, as it is alleged, of the count of Tripoli, who fled from the field with his retainers, both the Templars and Hospitallers were surrounded, and were to a man killed or taken prisoners. The bishop of Ptolemais was slain, the bishop of Lydda was made captive, and the holy cross, together with the king of Jerusalem, and the Grand Master of the Temple, fell into the hands of the Saracens. "Quid plura?" says Radulph, abbot of the monastery of Coggleshale in Essex, who was then on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was wounded in the nose by an arrow. "Capta est crux, et rex, et Magister militiæ Templi, et episcopus Liddensis, et frater Regis, et Templarii, et Hospitalarii, et marchio de Montferrat, atque omnes vel mortui vel capti sunt. Plangite super hoc omnes adoratores crucis, et plorate; sublatum est lignum nostræ salutis, dignum ab indignis indigne heu! heu! asportatum. Væ mihi misero, quod in diebus miseræ vitæ meæ talia cogor videre.... O dulce lignum, et suave, sanguine filii Dei roratum atque lavatum! O crux alma, in qua salus nostra pependit! &c.[192]