Itinerary
68
On another occasion, as three sailors were conducting Ivo de Vipont
with ten companions to Tyre, and had wandered too far from the port,
some
Turkish pirates, coming out in a galley from an eddy of the sea near
the land, bore down upon them; they were about eighty in number, and
when the sailors saw them coming near, in their excessive fear they cried
out together, ÒO Lord God, we shall be taken and slaughtered.Ó To whom
Ivo de Vipont said, ÒWhy do ye of little faith fear those whom you shall
soon see dead?Ó And when the enemyÕs galley appeared by force of rowing
to be on the point of striking
the vessel with its beak, Ivo leapt into it and
began to cut down the Turks who pressed upon him, with the axe he
carried in his hand. His companions, when they saw his work prosper,
gaining heart, leapt into the galley also, and either beheaded whomsoever
they found, or led them away captives. Thus these men triumphed who
placed their hope in God, who knows not how to be conquered, and with
whom a
counterfeit faith availeth not, nor a multitude of warriors, for it
matters not with the Lord whether the valour of battle and the glory of
victory rest with a few or with many.
Chapter LV. Ñ
The admiralÕs genitalia destroyed by the Greek fire with which the
enemy proposed to destroy our machines.
Again, when the townsmen beheld a great multitude of our people
going, as was their wont, in search of provender for the animals, they
sallied out against them under the command of their admiral
Bellegeminus, a famous and powerful man, and rushed without care upon
them; but our men withstood the enemy obstinately, and after many were
killed
on both sides, drove them back into the city. But the admiral stood
his ground a long time, as he was a man of greater bravery than the others;
while he was doing his best to execute the main object of the attack by
cutting to pieces or burning with Greek fire the machines which were
ready to move against the walls of the city, and as, while his men fled, he
lagged behind to accomplish his purpose, a soldier, coining behind, threw
him from his horse, and the vessel in which he
carried the Greek fire being