Then the King bade them be of good cheer, and
offered to aid them. And in the 114th year[70] he mounted his horse, and
he took with him a host that could not be numbered, and went against the
Moslems. And he came upon them at the great city of Tours. And
Abderrahman and other prudent cavaliers saw the disorder of the Moslem
troops, who were loaded with spoil; but they did not venture to
displease the soldiers by ordering them to abandon everything except
their arms and war-horses. And Abderrahman trusted in the valor of his
soldiers, and in the good fortune which had ever attended him. But, the
Arab writer remarks, such defect of discipline always is fatal to
armies.
"So Abderrahman and his host attacked Tours to gain still more spoil,
and they fought against it so fiercely that they stormed the city almost
before the eyes of the army that came to save it, and the fury and the
cruelty of the Moslems toward the inhabitants of the city were like the
fury and cruelty of raging tigers. It was manifest," adds the Arab,
"that God's chastisement was sure to follow such excesses, and Fortune
thereupon turned her back upon the Moslems.
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