Longsword fell that day with his face to the foe, Artois, in trying to escape, and the whole force must have been destroyed had not the King's division come to the rescue, while Joinville, who tells the tale, managed to hold the bridge across to the town. Says the latter, "We were all covered with the darts that failed to hit the sergeants. Now it chanced that I found a Saracen's quilted tunic lined with tow: I turned the open side towards me and made a shield of it, which did me good service, for I was only wounded by their darts in five places, and my horse in fifteen. And it chanced again that one of my burgesses of Joinville brought me a pennon with my arms and a lance head thereto, and every time that we saw that the Turks pressed too hardly upon the sergeants, we charged them and they went flying. "The good Count of Soissons, in that point of danger, jested with me, and said, 'Seneschal, let these curs howl! We shall talk of this day yet, you and I, in ladies' chambers.'" At sunset, when the King's crossbow men came up, the Saracens fled, and Joinville, hastening to Louis, conducted him with loving care to his tent. "And as we were going, I made him take off his helmet, and lent him my steel cap, so that he might have air. "When he had passed over the river, there came to him Brother Henry, Provost of the Hospitallers, and kissed his mailed hand. The king asked if he had any tidings of the Count of Artois, his brother, and the Provost said that he had news of him indeed, for he {230} knew of a certainty that his brother, the Count of Artois, was in Paradise. "'Ah, sire,' said the Provost, 'be of good comfort therein, for never did King of France gain such honour as you have gained this day. For, in order to fight your enemies, you have passed swimmingly over a river, and you have discomfited them, and driven them from the field, and taken their war-engines and also their tents, wherein you will sleep this night.' "Then the king replied, 'Let God be worshipped for all He has given me!' but the big tears fell from his eyes." In spite of the Provost's cheering words, the King's army was still in a position of great danger. That very night an attack was made upon the camp, which was but the first of a series of attacks which cut Louis off entirely from Damietta and forced him to retreat to the "Island." "When I was laid in my bed," says Joinville, "when indeed I had good need of rest because of the wounds received the day before--no rest was vouchsafed to me. For before it was well day, a cry went through the camp, 'To arms! To arms!' I roused my chamberlain, who lay at my feet, and told him to go and see what was the matter. He came back in terror, and said, 'Up, lord, up: for here are the Saracens, who have come on foot and mounted, and discomfited the king's sergeants who kept guard over the engines, and have driven them among the ropes of our tents.' [Illustration: _The Last Fight of William Longsword_]