men, except the crossbowmen, to shelter in the galley's forecastles and behind the ship's bulwarks and hold their fire. Word was passed through to the sailors to hurl no weapons whatsoever until the Angevins' barrage stopped. The Aragonese "suffered the attack of the Provençal galleys wherefrom stones and lances and lime were cast in such deluge that the sight thereof was most fearful to behold." Only at midday, when the Angevins had depleted their missile munitions, did Lauria allow his troops to fire upon the Angevin ships. The Catalans' marksmanship, particularly their almogavars and their crossbowmen carried the battle for the Aragonese. Detaching their lashings, the individual Aragonese galleys then moved in for the ship-to-ship assault. Once the Angevin galleys were grappled, the almogavars boarded the enemy ships, with the exhausted and heavily armoured French knights being no match for the agile Aragonese infantry. The battle, which had begun at sunrise, lasted until the hour of vespers, with Muntaner remarking that "never could any man see more cruel a battle." Although the Provençals had one more galley, and had been reinforced by a hundred men of rank from the castle, the Angevins could not hold their own against the Aragonese. Muntaner reports that before vespers a "full three thousand five hundred of the Provençals had been killed." On the boarded Angevins galleys, all who were found on deck were killed such that between the wounded and all those who hid below, "not five hundred men came out alive." Cornut, his kinsmen friends and the men of rank from the castle were all massacred. Muntaner states that Cornut fell in single-combat with Lauria. Desclot indicates that 860 prisoners were taken in the battle. The Aragonese captured the remaining Angevin galleys, with one of the lighter Angevin scouting ships managing to put out to sea and escape. The ship, according to Muntaner, made its way to Naples and Marseilles with news of the Angevin disaster. However, Desclot mentions that Bartholomé Bonvin managed to force his way through the Aragonese fleet with about seven galleys – two of which were so heavily damaged they had to be abandoned. The rest were either sunk, or captured. Aftermath Lauria took his galleys and landed his troops on the western point of Grand Harbour, with his losses counted at three hundred dead and two hundred injured. At once, the Aragonese sent an armed barge to Syracuse,