e Christian and Saracen boys
used to issue forth every evening from the town and camp in
great numbers, under the command of captains chosen from among
themselves. Armed with sticks instead of swords, and stones
instead of arrows, they ranged themselves in battle order,
and, shouting each the war-cry of their country, fought with
the utmost desperation. Some of them lost their eyes, and many
became cripples for life from the injuries they received on
these occasions.

[Illustration: THE PILGRIMS AT THE FIRST SIGHT OF JERUSALEM.]

The first ebullition of their gladness having subsided, the army marched
forward, and invested the city on all sides. The assault was almost
immediately begun; but after the Christians had lost some of their bravest
knights, that mode of attack was abandoned, and the army commenced its
preparations for a regular siege. Mangonels, moveable towers, and
battering-rams, together with a machine called a sow, made of wood, and
covered with raw hides, inside of which miners worked to undermine the
walls, were forthwith constructed; and to restore the courage and
discipline of the army, which had suffered from the unworthy dissensions
of the chiefs, the latter held out the hand of friendship to each other,
and Tancred and the Count of Toulouse embraced in sight of the whole camp.
The clergy aided the cause with their powerful voice, and preached union
and goodwill to the highest and the lowest. A solemn procession was also
ordered round the city, in which the entire army joined, prayers being
offered up at every spot which gospel records had taught them to consider
as peculiarly sacred.

The Saracens upon the ramparts beheld all these manifestations without
alarm. To incense the Christians, whom they despised, they constructed
rude crosses, and fixed them upon the walls, and spat upon and pelted them
with dirt and stones. This insult to the symbol of their faith raised the
wrath of the Crusaders to that height that bravery became ferocity, and
enthusiasm madness. When all the engines of war were completed, the attack
was recommenced, and every soldier of the Christian army fought with a
vigour which the sense of private wrong invariably inspires. Every man had
been personally outraged, and the knights worked at the battering-rams
with as much readiness as the meanest soldiers. The Saracen arrows and
balls of fire fell thick and fast am