d the lands through which they marched, while three
thousand horsemen, headed by some counts and gentlemen, were not too
dignified to act as their attendants and to share their spoil.

But if they had no scruple in robbing Christians, their delight was to
prove the reality of their mission as soldiers of the cross by
plundering, torturing, and slaying Jews. The crusade against the Turk
was interpreted as a crusade directed not less explicitly against the
descendants of those who had crucified the Redeemer. The streets of
Verdun and Treves and of the great cities on the Rhine ran red with the
blood of their victims; and if some saved their lives by pretended
conversions, many more cheated their persecutors by throwing their
property and their persons either into the rivers or into the consuming
fires.

A space of six hundred miles lay between the Austrian frontier and
Constantinople; and across the dreary waste the followers of Walter the
Penniless struggled on, destitute of money, and rousing the hostility of
the inhabitants whom they robbed and ill-used. In Bulgaria their
misdeeds provoked reprisals which threatened their destruction; and none
perhaps would have reached Constantinople if the imperial commander at
Naissos had not rescued them from their enemies, supplied them with
food, and guarded them through the remainder of their journey. These
succors involved some costs; and the costs were paid by the sale of
unarmed men among the pilgrims, and especially of the women and
children, who were seized to provide the necessary funds. Of those who
formed the train of the hermit Peter, seven thousand only, it is said,
reached Constantinople.

Of such a rabble rout the emperor Alexius[41] needed not to be afraid.
He had already seen and encountered far larger armies of Normans, Turks,
and Romans; and he now extended to this vanguard of the hosts of Latin
Christendom a hospitality which was almost immediately abused. They had
refused to comply with his request that they should quietly await the
arrival of their fellow-crusaders; and consulting the safety of his
people not less than his own, he induced them to cross the Bosporus, and
pitch their camp on Asiatic soil, the land which they had come to wrest
from the unbelievers.

[Footnote 41: Head of the Byzantine empire.]

Alexius wished simply to be rid of their presence: they had to deal with
an enemy still more crafty and formidable in the Seljukian sultan David.
Th