clambering with their chargers up the ruined wall only to find their labour useless, for a new one had risen behind the old, strongly and skilfully erected, and defended by the Hospitallers themselves, with their marshal, Claremont, at their head. But though the horsemen were easily driven back, the miners of the sultan soon found their way to the foundation of the new defence: down it came, and with it many a tower and battlement beside; among them was the principal fortress of the city, which the infidels were wont to call “the Cursed Tower,” from the mischief their men received beneath its walls. One assault now followed close upon another, and just when pressed the hardest, the Christians were deserted by their Cypriot allies. King Henry had had to sustain the shock of one day’s assault, and that was enough for him; under pretext that his men required repose, he got the Teutonic knights to take his post during the night, promising again to relieve them when morning dawned. But that dawn only showed the sails of his vessels sinking in the horizon; he had taken advantage of the night to embark unperceived, and was far on his way to Cyprus when the battle recommenced. That day the Saracens were well-nigh in possession of the town; for in one of their furious charges at the breach, they not only carried it with the slaughter of all its defenders, but penetrated to the very heart of the town. There was hard fighting hand to hand in the crowded streets, and the combat lasted two entire days, until at length Claremont, at the head of a handful of knights, drove the intruders back again to their trenches; whilst some of them were seen to seize their antagonists in their brawny arms and hurl them headlong over the battlements. One of these men, a Norman of prodigious size, leapt from his horse and threw three of the Saracens over one after another, like so many dogs; but as he was struggling with a fourth, a stone from a war-engine struck him to the ground.