Return
therefore to your country, or I will treat you as enemies!"
The envoys rode back with the King's answer. But Peter would not
turn back.
"Forward! forward! Crusaders and Christians!" he cried, and the
whole host crossed the frontier. The Hermit rode on an ass at the
head of them, and knew not what went on behind him--robbery,
drunkenness, and licence.
The King learned what had happened, and rode out with all his
knights. When he saw this mass of ragged rascals, drunk and savage,
but all wearing the red cross, he fell in a rage and attacked them.
Those who did not fly were trampled underfoot and sabred down so
mercilessly, that, out of the sixty thousand, only three thousand
reached Constantinople, among whom was the Hermit.
"We have sown our blood," he said; "our successors will reap."
The Emperor of Constantinople had certainly for a long time waited
for help from the West against the wild Seljuks, but he had expected
armed men. When he now received a rabble of three thousand beggars
and vagabonds, many of them wounded, he resolved to get rid of these
guests as honourably as possible. He set them in flat-bottomed
boats, and shipped them across to Asia Minor. "Thence you have a
straight road to Jerusalem," he said. But he did not say that
the Seljuks were encamped on the opposite coast.
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