not obey me, for that between ns and Damietta were the large galleys of the sultan, which would infallibly capture us. The king's seamen had made great fires on board their galleys, to cherish the unfortunate sick ; and many others in the same state were waiting on the banks of the river for vessels to take them on board. As I was advising my sailors to make some little way, I saw, by the light of the fires, the Saracens enter our camp, and murder these sick that were waiting on the banks of the Nile ; and as my men were raising the anchor, and we began to move downward, the sailors who were to take the sick on board advanced with their boats ; but seeing the Saracens in the act of killing them, they retreated to their large galleys, cut their cables, and fell down on my small bark. I expected every moment they would have sunk me ; but we escaped this imminent danger, and made some way down the river. The king had the same illness as the rest of his army, with a dysentery,* which, had he pleased, he might have prevented, by living on board his larger vessels ; bnt be said, he had rather die than leave his people. The king, observing us make off, began to shout and cry to us to remain, and likewise ordered some heavy bolts to be shot at us, to stop our course until we should have his orders to sail. I will now break the course of my narration, and say in what manner the king was made prisoner, as he told me himself. I heard him say, that he had quitted his own battalion and men-at-arms, and, with Sir Geoffry de Sergines, had joined the battalion of Sir Gaultier de Ghastillon, who commanded the rear division. The king was mounted on a small courser, with only a housing of silk ; and of all his menat-arms, there was only with him the good knight Sir Geoffry de Sergines, who attended him as far as the town of CaseJ, where the king was made prisoner. But before the Turks conld take him, I heard say, that Sir Geoffry de Sergines defended him in like manner as a faithful servant does the cup of his master from flies ; for every time the Saracens approached him, Sir Geoffry guarded him with vigorous strokes of the blade and point of his sword, and it seemed as if his courage and strength were doubled. * In the lapidary manuscript, in the chapter of Amethysts, it is said, ·' that it destroys dead flesh from wounds, and stops the dysentery."