It was a wondrous spectacle; far as the eye might pierce, only horsemen, and more horsemen, speeding at headlong gallop. "Christ pity us!" more than one bronze-faced cavalier muttered in his beard. And some cried, "Charge!" But Tancred held them steady. The hordes swept on as one man, nearer, so near that the dust-cloud blew in the Christians' faces; and all braced themselves for the shock. But just as the crash was about to tremble on the air, lo! the foremost Turks had wheeled like lightning, and arrows flew out that darkened the sky by their number. And as the first horde rolled off to one flank, still shooting, the next, the next, and yet another whirled past, pouring forth their volleys.
"Stand fast, Christians!" was Tancred's shout, as the first shafts dashed harmlessly on the good mail; and for a moment the Franks sat, their steeds immovable, and let the blast of steel beat on them. Yet only for a moment; though but one arrow in a hundred struck home, here and there men were bleeding, wounded horses plunging. Each instant Crusaders were falling; should they sit forever and be shot to death? Duke Robert was the first to charge. "_Dex aiè!_" cried his Norman knights, and lance in rest they spurred straight in the face of the wheeling myriads. Vain courage! A few Seljouks they struck and rode over in a twinkling; but the vast horde parted before them like water, and rained in arrows and ever more arrows from safe distance. The Duke regained his lines, but one-fourth of his men had been stricken, and the terrible horse-archers were shooting a more deadly shower than ever.
"The foot! the crossbowmen!" was the cry of the raging knights. And their archers and arbalisters, coming to the front, tried to return the fire as best they could. Many a Seljouk rode no more after their volley, but their shafts were as a bucket on a holocaust. Horsemen, and yet more horsemen, were rolling in. More and more rapid the arrow fire, the sky was dark with flying dust, the ear deafened with the thunders of hoofs uncounted, the clash of the kettledrums, the yell and howl of the Seljouks. Flesh and blood could stand the strain no more. Either the Turks must be routed, or the Franks would perish to a man.