Day after day passed in harassing conflicts.  The distance passed over each day was very small, and the sufferings of the men from thirst, heat, and fatigue enormous.  Cuthbert could well understand now what he had heard of great armies melting away, for already men began to succumb in large numbers to the terrible heat, and the path traversed by the army was scattered with corpses of those who had fallen victims to sunstroke.  Not even at night did the attacks of the enemy cease, and a portion of the harassed force was obliged to keep under arms to repel assaults.

So passed the time until the army arrived at Azotus, and there, to the delight of the crusaders, who only longed to get at their foes, they beheld the whole force of Saladin, 200,000 strong, barring their way.  Had it not been for the stern discipline enforced by King Richard, the knights of England and France would have repeated the mistake which had caused the extermination of the Christian force at Tiberias, and would have levelled their lances and charged recklessly into the mass of their enemies.  But the king, riding round the flanks and front of the force, gave his orders in the sternest way, with the threat that any man who moved from the ranks should die by his hand.

The army was halted, the leaders gathered round the king, and a hasty consultation was held.  Richard insisted upon the fight being conducted upon the same principles as the march—­that the line of archers should stand outside the knights, and should gall the advancing force with arrows till the last moment, and then retire among the cavalry, only to sally out again as the Bedouins fell back from the steel wall of horsemen.

Cuthbert had now for the first time donned full armour, and rode behind the Earl of Evesham as his esquire, for the former esquire had been left behind, ill with fever, at Acre.

CHAPTER XII.

The accolade.

It was now a year since they had left England, and Cuthbert had much grown and widened out in the interval, and had never neglected an opportunity of practising with arms; and the earl was well aware that he should obtain as efficient assistance from him in time of need as he could desire.

This was the first time that Cuthbert, and indeed the great proportion of those present in the Christian host, had seen the enemy in force, and they eagerly watched the vast array.  It was picturesque in the extreme, with a variety and brightness of colour rivalling that of the Christian host.  In banners and pennons the latter made a braver show; but the floating robes of the infidel showed a far brighter mass of colour than the steel armour of the Christians.