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part of the fort they should attack, as they were unable entirely to surround
it; for if our small numbers were scattered, they would not be able to storm
the tower, or withstand the attack of the Turks; wherefore they retired in a
body towards a village situated in a plain, where they drew up. The Turks,
on seeing so small an army, came forth from the castle, as if to solicit and
challenge them to battle, and then retired again, and having barred their

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Itinerary
231
gates very strongly, prepared to defend themselves. Immediately
afterwards, the kingÕs stone-engines arrived in his ships, which being
disjointed, and in different pieces, the king, his princes, and nobles, carried
on their shoulders from the shore, not without much sweating, as we
ourselves saw, for nearly a mile. At last, when the engines were put
together, and men placed to work them, the king took upon himself to
manage one of them, and with it to attack the principal tower of the fort,
the Normans had the second, and the men of Poictou the third; and all of
them were put in motion for the destruction of the fort. The Turks saw that
utter destruction was close at hand; but for all that, they endeavoured to
defend themselves manfully. King Richard caused his engines to be plied
day and night. Darum had seventeen strong and compact towers, one of
which was higher and stronger than the others, and externally it was
surrounded by a deep ditch, which was built on one side of layers of
paving stones, and a natural rock hung over the other. And now cowardly
fears came upon the unbelieving race, lest they should not be able to
defend themselves effectually, or even to escape with their lives. On the
morrow, the king caused the sappers to carry a mine very cleverly
underground, in order to break up the pavement, and make a hollow in the
wall; and the stone-engines, being plied in common, broke in pieces, by
their frequent blows, one of the enemyÕs mangonels, erected on the
principal tower, at which the enemy were very much discouraged. At first
the Turks drove back our men with stones and darts, which fell in dense
showers from their slings and bows; but our slingers, to the great
destruction of our foes, wherever they saw any one exposed to their attack
on the battlements, threw missiles at him, and wounded and killed so
many of them, that the enemy scarcely dared to move for fear; and their
condition began now to be far from enviable, when on a sudden, one of the
gates of the fort was broken down, set on fire, and utterly destroyed by the
blows of the kingÕs stone-engines. The Turks, now driven to desperation,
by this continuous and harassing attack, were not able to make a longer
defence, and many were killed, while others lay wounded on the ground. It
was now clear that King Richard was invincible in every operation he
commenced; and that by undermining the towers, and plying his engines,

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he was sure to succeed. Three, therefore, of the Saracens came from the fort
to the king, and sued for peace, offering to surrender the fort, and every
thing belonging to it, on condition that they should be allowed to go away
with their lives; but the king refused, and told them to defend themselves
to the utmost of their power. They returned therefore to the fort, and the
kingÕs engine was kept constantly at work; and directly afterwards, a
tower, which had been weakened by a subterranean passage, made by the
kingÕs miners, after repeated blows, fell to the ground with a dreadful
crash. The Turks in escaping from the ruins became mingled with our men,
who pursued them with slaughter, till they took refuge in the principal
tower, having first performed the horrible act of cutting the sinews of their
horses, to prevent their being of service to the enemy. The Turks now fled,
and our men boldly approached the fort. The first who entered it were
Seguin Borret, and his armour-bearer, named Ospiard; the third was Peter
of Gascony, and after him, many others, whose names are lost. The banner
of Stephen de Longchamp was the first that was raised above the walls; the
second was that of the earl of Leicester; and the third, that of Andrew de
Chavegui; the fourth was that of Raimund, son of the prince; and then the
Genoese and Pisans raised on the wall their standards of various forms.
Thus the banners of our men were raised, and those of the Turks thrown
down. And now the Turks might be seen flying towards the tower, or
falling to the earth, smitten with the sword or transfixed with darts, before
they could reach it; all whom our men found still standing their ground on
the battlements, they hurled down to the earth below. Sixty Turks were
killed in different parts of the fort. Those who had taken refuge in the
tower, seeing the slaughter of their troops, and that their place of refuge
would be demolished (for, at the instance of the king, men were already
setting to work to overthrow it), and that there was no longer any safety in
opposing the king, in their extremity, on the Friday before Pentecost, gave
themselves up to the royal clemency to be slaves for ever; especially as one
of their most powerful admirals, by name Caisac, to whose care the fort
had been intrusted, had failed in his promise to give them succour. The fort
of Darum being thus taken, nearly forty Christian captives were found
there in chains, and were now set at liberty. On the following Saturday

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