_ 124 _ stopped shooting, so as not to kill them. The Arabs also thought that more of our men would follow behind, and they stayed where they were, even though their numbers were much greater than ours. From their position they defended themselves very well, but our men killed some of them, not counting the many who had already been killed by the riflemen and the crossbowmen. In the meantime, Henrique Homem, who had remained outside the walls with his men, ran along then until he came to the mountain which he then climbed, in order to come down into the city. But the Arabs did not let him do this and resisted very strongly, shooting arrows and throwing millstones down the mountain; they killed some of our men and made them run away. Their retreat down the mountain was so disorderly that they ran into João Fidalgo's men, who were going up; they stumbled over each other and there was such chaos that the governor (who had come to them) was unable to make them go back up. When Mira Mergena saw that our men's attack on the mountain had failed, and that only those few I mentioned had gone into the city; he thought that those who were inside the walls were as good as lost; riding his horse and armed with a skirt of mail and a helmet he assembled his men to descend on ours. When he reached the walls at the
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