Move onward, slow and steady." The little phalanx moved forward accordingly, accompanied on all sides by the Arabs, with the shrillest and most piercing cries, the bowmen, meanwhile, displaying their agility by shooting as near the crests of the Christians as was possible, without actually hitting them, while the lancers charged each other with such rude blows of their blunt weapons that more than one of them lost his saddle, and well-nigh his life, in this rough sport.

All this, though designed to express welcome, had rather a doubtful appearance in the eyes of the Europeans.
As they had advanced nearly half way towards the camp, King Richard and his suite forming, as it were, the nucleus round which this tumultuary body of horsemen howled, whooped, skirmished, and galloped, creating a scene of indescribable confusion, another shrill cry was heard, on which all these irregulars, who were on the front and upon the flanks of the little body of Europeans, wheeled off; and forming themselves into a long and deep column, followed with comparative order and silence in the rear of Richard's troops.

The dust began now to dissipate in their front, when there advanced to meet them through that cloudy veil a body of cavalry of a different and more regular description, completely armed with offensive and defensive weapons, and who might well have served as a bodyguard to the proudest of Eastern monarchs.

This splendid troop consisted of five hundred men and each horse which it contained was worth an earl's ransom.

The riders were Georgian and Circassian slaves in the very prime of life.