After no long space they arrived, in their stormy course, at a station where they found themselves in a kind of amphitheatre, or rather the place might be compared to a great and deep caldron. The cliffs rose high around them, and loud reverberating echoes announced the approach of the foe from the clifts and coverts of the mountain, who came to the assault with fearful shouts and neighing of horses. Here then the Christians expected that the battle would soon be decided in their favour; but the same fiery missiles once more flew over their heads, and, by their glimmering light, the soldiers beheld hideous spectres, that grinned on them, and stretched out their long black arms from the thickets: it seemed at last, as if the whole valley had changed into some horrid pagan temple, where these figures represented the gods, and where the Christian troops were to be immolated in sacrifice. Even the horses, accustomed as they were to carry their noble masters into the heart of every danger, reared and snorted wildly at the unwonted sounds and shapes by which they were now surrounded; and all of them, Sir Otto’s light-brown steed not excepted, became unmanageable, wheeled round and round, and at last forced their brave riders away with them in timid and disorderly flight. Then the Finland soldiers howled and shouted as if in scornful triumph, and, with redoubled strength and courage, sent down from the cliffs showers of arrows and javelins, so that many a horseman among the Christians fell dead on the ground; and yet more of the foot-soldiers, no longer protected by the cavalry, were left in the power of their enemies. Not till late in the night the two commanders contrived to quiet their horses, and bring a troop of their most faithful adherents into regular order beside them; and this happened in a narrow rocky valley.