and steered for the harbor on the Muslim side (1). When the Franks challenged them, they pleaded that they were being driven along by the ship itself and that the wind was so strong they could neither heave to nor turn back (2). They kept up this pretense until they had entered the harbor and unloaded (3) the provisions on board. War, after all, is deception. Thus the vessel crossed the harbor while the eye of unbelief wept helplessly; the seaport was filled with bounty, joy, and prosperity. Those supplies sustained them (4) until the arrival of the three Egyptian buṣṣ (5).

The town’s harbor was flanked (6) by two towers, one of which was called the Fly Tower (7). The Franks therefore built an enormous buss fitted with a projecting beak (8) that could be maneuvered (9): whenever they wished to set it against a stretch of wall or a tower, they would tip it (10) and it would reach exactly where they desired (11). This buss became a grave concern for the Muslims, who kept devising ways to deal with it until Allah sent upon it a tongue of fire that burned it and sent it to the bottom. The Franks had loaded it with great quantities of naphtha and stout logs, and behind it they towed another ship filled solely with timber. Then, (12) when the Muslims attempted to dash (13) into the harbor with their vessels (14), the Franks poured naphtha onto the timber-ship and it burst into flames (15) as it sailed among the Muslim buṣṣ; (16) the other ship also caught fire. Yet another of their vessels carried combatants housed beneath a vault they had strongly reinforced. When they hurled the naphtha toward the Fly Tower (17), the affair was turned against them by Allah’s power, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate (18): the wind was fierce that night, so the fire did not go beyond their own ship, which burned; the blaze spread to the second, which sank, and reached the fighting ship, which was destroyed, and all on board perished (19).