Meanwhile, Beaufort, although sure of the quietude and inaction of the Turks, was with difficulty restraining his fiery impatience, when, half an hour before dawn, he heard at the extreme right a deafening discharge of musketry. Immediately he arose, and all his troops with him, ordered a salute to be beaten and the charge sounded, and springing to the head of the first battalion, cleared the entrenchment which defended the Turkish camp. Colbert, followed by the company of Guards, rushed towards the left, with the intention of surrounding the adversary. With equal impetuosity they all traversed a ravine which they encountered in the rear of the entrenchment, and without suffering themselves to be checked in their onslaught by the stony nature of the soil, carried at the first attack the trenches of the enemy, who abandoned them after having fired off their arms. The surprise and fright of the Turks were extreme. They fled in disorder, pell-mell; and many of those who escaped Beaufort threw themselves into the sea, pursued by Dampierre’s troops. All at once, towards the right, an immense flash of fire was seen, and a fearful explosion shook the ground. The soldiers and sailors surrounding Beaufort stopped suddenly; but he, without appearing alarmed by this noise, the cause of which he did not know, exclaimed, “Courage, children! courage! Since they spring a mine in our front, it is a sign that they are flying.” He succeeded for a moment in overcoming the terror of his troops, and even prevailed on them to advance a few paces.[208] But on the detachment commanded by Dampierre the effects of this terrible catastrophe were something very different. Caused by the explosion of a magazine, containing twenty-five tons of powder, which had been set alight through the imprudence of a musketeer, it had destroyed an entire battalion of French Guards, and had produced everywhere an unspeakable terror. The troops were persuaded that the enemy had undermined the whole of their works, and that the ground they were marching over was about to open under their feet. From point to point did this belief spread, until the terrified soldiers threw away their arms and fled with precipitation. It was in vain that Navailles, Dampierre, and the other general officers endeavoured to restrain them. The panic became universal, and the shameful and dreadful cry of “_Sauve qui peut!_” resounded from all parts. This disorder was increased still more by an error which even the obscurity of the night can scarcely explain. The fugitives, meeting Beaufort’s sailors, threw themselves upon them as enemies. The long garments of seven or eight Armenians who were at their head, contributed, it seems, to confirm a fatal mistake.[209] In this horrible _mêlée_ no one recognized any one else, and fellow-countrymen killed one another in the belief that they were slaying the infidels. Beaufort, utterly abandoned, endeavoured to correct this disastrous