Saladin then recrossed the Orontes, and laid siege to Berzyeh, or Borzya, a fortress which commanded the high road from Antioch to Emesa, or Hems, and was, therefore, a place of very great importance. During a very hot day, when the garrison had been fighting from sunrise till noon, Saladin suddenly called up his reserve, placed himself at their head, scaled the fortifications, and entered the town sword in hand. The houses were set on fire, the streets were drenched with blood, and all the inhabitants who escaped the general massacre, were made slaves. From Berzyeh, Saladin marched down the vast and fertile plain of the Orontes, to the famous iron bridge over that river, about six or seven miles from Antioch, with a view of besieging the strong castle of the Knights Templars, called Derbazâc, or Darbêsak. On the 8th Regeb, having collected his forces together, and procured a vast number of powerful military engines, he moved forward and invested the place. The walls were surrounded with wooden towers, filled with expert archers, who swept the battlements with their arrows. Under cover of these towers, battering-rams were placed in position, and a vast breach was made in the walls. Saladin’s body-guard moved forward to the assault, supported by crowds of archers on either flank, but the Templars filled up the breach with their bodies, and after a bloody contest the Mussulmen were driven back, leaving the ground covered with their dead. The Templars repaired the breach, and the sultan shifted his ground of attack. Hurdles covered with raw hides were advanced against the walls, and an expert party of miners were employed, under cover of these hurdles, to undermine a huge tower, which was considered to be the key of the fortifications. The tower was so well and strongly built, that it resisted for a length of time all the efforts of the miners; they dug away a great part of the foundations, and the tower appeared, says Ibn Alatsyr, to be suspended in the air. At last, however, it fell with a tremendous crash, carrying along with it into the ditch a vast portion of the walls on either side, so that a large yawning gap was opened in the fortifications. Again the Mussulmen rushed to the assault with loud shouts, and again they were hurled back by the stout arms of the Templars, leaving the heaps of stone, and the vast masses of shattered walls around them, crimsoned with the blood of their best men. Bohadin, who witnessed the assault, declares that he never saw such an obstinate defence. As soon as any one of the Templars fell, another, he tells us, would immediately take his place, and thus they remained upon the breach immoveable as a rock. At last, it was agreed that if the fortress was not succoured by the prince of Antioch, within a given period, the Templars should surrender it, and march out with their arms in their hands. No succour arrived by the appointed time, and the place was consequently given up to the Mussulmen.[80]