He joined a horde of adventurers who were passing through the place.
He learned what it was to suffer hunger, thirst, sickness and filth. He grew accustomed to
the din of battles and to the sight of dying men. The wind tanned his skin. His limbs
became hardened through contact with armour, and as he was very strong and brave,
temperate and of good counsel, he easily obtained command of a company.
At the outset of a battle, he would electrify his soldiers by a motion of his sword. He
would climb the walls of a citadel with a knotted rope, at night, rocked by the storm,
while sparks of fire clung to his cuirass, and molten lead and boiling tar poured from the
battlements.
Often a stone would break his shield. Bridges crowded with men gave way under him.
Once, by turning his mace, he rid himself of fourteen horsemen. He defeated all those
who came forward to fight him on the field of honour, and more than a score of times it
was believed that he had been killed.
However, thanks to Divine protection, he always escaped, for he shielded orphans,
widows, and aged men. When he caught sight of one of the latter walking ahead of him,
he would call to him to show his face, as if he feared that he might kill him by mistake.
All sorts of intrepid men gathered under his leadership, fugitive slaves, peasant rebels,
and penniless bastards; he then organized an army which increased so much that he
became famous and was in great demand.
He succoured in turn the Dauphin of France, the King of England, the Templars of
Jerusalem, the General of the Parths, the Negus of Abyssinia and the Emperor of Calicut.
He fought against Scandinavians covered with fish-scales, against negroes mounted on
red asses and armed with shields made of hippopotamus hide, against gold-coloured
Indians who wielded great, shining swords above their heads. He conquered the
Troglodytes and the cannibals. He travelled through regions so torrid that the heat of the
sun would set fire to the hair on one's head; he journeyed through countries so glacial that
one's arms would fall from the body; and he passed through places where the fogs were
so dense that it seemed like being surrounded by phantoms.
Republics in trouble consulted him; when he conferred with ambassadors, he always
obtained unexpected concessions. Also, if a monarch behaved badly, he would arrive on
the scene and rebuke him. He freed nations. He rescued queens sequestered in towers. It
was he and no other that killed the serpent of Milan and the dragon of Oberbirbach.
Now, the Emperor of Occitania, having triumphed over the Spanish Mussulmans, had
taken the sister of the Caliph of Cordova as a concubine, and had had one daughter by
her, whom he brought up in the teachings of Christ. But the Caliph, feigning that he
