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Page 375
take breath, wondering why Comnenus had taken the trouble to build the barricade if it was not to be defended. However one does not long question a gift of God, like bad tactics. Thus far, nothing had come at them beyond a few arrows and shrieks, growls like those of a mad dog, and terrible threats.
"Come then," Richard bellowed. "Come and give your noise substance."
The only reply was a further shower of abuse. Richard roared with contempt and signaled his troops, now streaming over the barricade, forward. Like the archers, Comnenus' grand army was accustomed to facing unarmed and desperate peasants. The disciplined advance of a steel-clad, well-armed, determined body of men was something with which they had little experience. A few brave men stood their ground, but the greater number retreated, believing mistakenly that they would be safer among the narrow streets and crooked buildings. Thus they cast away their greatest advantages: that they outnumbered Richard's forces two to one and that in the open their horses gave them speed and maneuverability footmen could not match.
Joyfully, Richard's men took up the pursuit into the city where, remembering the lessons they had learned in Sicily, they took the town without the least trouble. Richard himself ranged back and forth, calling aloud for Comnenus to show himself. Twice Simon tried to reason with him and at last managed to get across the idea that one who uses deceit and torture as his common tactics is not usually eager to engage in personal combat. In his opinion Comnenus had fled.
There, however, Simon guessed wrong. As he, Richard, and the small party of knights who always fought by the King made their way toward the central passage into the town, a group distinguished by a more brilliant set of pennons, more gilded armor, and more exquisite horses flashed from a byway. Richard and his men set up a shout of mingled thanksgiving and sur-

 
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