gaily only a few survivors returned after many hardships. A terrible reverse, but evidently it did not affect his spirits once he was back in safety. Writing to his brother, Turan Shah, whom he had left in control of Damascus, he declared, in a manner unusually florid for him : " I thought of thee while the lances were agitated in our midst and the javelins of brown iron quenched their thirst with our blood." Perhaps it was a bit of bravura to show the elder brother, who doubtless had lorded it over him in the days when he was still only little Joseph, that he had not been shaken by his fearful experience. However, the defeat did not hold him back from meeting the enemy for long. Within three months he crossed over into Syria with a new army and soon there were skirmishes between his troops and the Franks, while he with the main army remained encamped near Emesa. Undoubtedly his defeat must have rankled somewhat for he ordered a number of prisoners beheaded, which was quite unlike his usual clemency. After a number of successful smaller encounters, during one of which King Baldwin barely escaped, and this only because the gallant Humphrey of Toron sacrificed his own life to save him, the two armies came together in June, 1178, near Banias. Once again the Franks seemed to have a victory secure, with the Saracens in flight and hotly pursued. But the pursuers