_ 126 _ almost left senseless, and João de Meira, whose leg was almost severed from his body; João de Caminha was hit by an arrow on one of the fingers of his right hand, which he later lost. Our men were in such poor condition, that if the Arabs had pressed on they could have killed them all. However, they dared not get too close to the artillery opening, because our riflemen and crossbowmen could fire at them from there Garcia de Sousa who was up in the opening, was unable to go to the rescue of those who had retreated, because he and his men were already very busy defending themselves from the Arabs; the latter were shooting many arrows and throwing stones at them, whereas he and his men could not harm them since they had no lances the reason for this being that they had come with the intention of scaling the walls. Besides, the Arabs were so numerous and the space round the opening so small that they could not move with ease. As a result, they could neither help themselves nor those who had retreated. Our Lord saved them from a complete massacre, in a miraculous way; when the Arabs saw that they couldn't get close enough to our men, because of our riflemen, they decided to try and burn them; they obtained some bundles of straw which they placed at the end of their lances,
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