s greedily
upon any kind of food, wholesome and unwholesome, clean and unclean, that
they could scrape together here and there, and none shared with another
that which they picked up." So many and such sufferings produced
incredible dastardliness; and deserters escaped by night, in some cases
throwing themselves down, at the risk of being killed, into the
city-moat; in others getting down by help of a rope from the ramparts.
Indignation blazed forth against the fugitives; they were called
rope-dancers; and God was prayed to treat them as the traitor Judas.
William of Tyre and Guibert of Nogent, after naming some, and those the
very highest, end with these words: "Of many more I know not the names,
and I am unwilling to expose all that are well known to me."

"We are assured," says William of Tyre, "that in view of such woes and
such weaknesses, the princes, despairing of any means of safety, held
amongst themselves a secret council, at which they decided to abandon the
army and all the people, fly in the middle of the night, and retreat to
the sea." According to the Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa, the
princes would seem to have resolved, in this hour of dejection, not to
fly and leave the army to its fate, but "to demand of Corboghzi an
assurance for all, under the bond of an oath, of personal safety, on the
promise of surrendering Antioch to him; after which they would return
home." Several Arab historians, and amongst them Ibn-el-Athir, Aboul-
Faradje, and Aboul-Feda confirm the statement of conditions. Whatever
may have been the real turn taken by the promptings of weakness amongst
the Christians, Godfrey de Bouillon and Adhemar, bishop of Puy,
energetically rejected them all; and an unexpected incident, considered
as miraculous, reassured the wavering spirits both of soldiers and of
chiefs. A priest of Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew, came and announced to
the chiefs that St. Andrew had thrice appeared to him in a dream, saying,
"Go into the church of my brother Peter at Antioch; and hard by the high
altar thou wilt find, on digging up the ground, the head of the spear
which pierced our Redeemer's side. That, carried in front of the army,
will bring about the deliverance of the Christians." The appointed
search was solemnly conducted under the eye of twelve reputable
witnesses, priests and knights; the whole army was in attendance at the
closed gates of the church; the spear-head was found and carried off