re they told
their piteous tale to the authorities, who granted them an audience
with the Pope.

Kneeling before him, they told in graphic words the story of their
wanderings and sufferings and discouragements, to which unmoved the
Pope listened, then, praising their zeal, he commanded them to make no
further attempt to reach Palestine, telling them of the hopelessness of
the undertaking. But he added, that the cross of a Crusader once
assumed, bound one for ever to the Holy Cause, and that when they were
older they must fight again for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre,
whenever he should call them to do so.

This bound the children to a repetition of their hardships and
adventures, which, considering the courage and suffering of that little
band of youths who knelt before him, was little less than cruelty.

Despairing now, and worn out with what they had endured, they were
forced to obey the Pope's decree, and so with shattered hopes and
dreams of glory for ever abandoned, they retraced their steps, and
found their pathway homeward far more trying than the rest of their
journey had been.

Many of them died on the way, and of those who lived, it was said in
towns and cities through which they passed, that where in departing
they passed in parties and troops, happy and never without the song of
cheer, they now returned in silence, barefoot and hungry, and with no
band of followers.

Day by day they straggled into Cologne--victims of a sad delusion.
Alas, how bitterly they had paid for their wilful disobedience!

When asked where they had been, they said they did not know, and had
only wild confused tales to tell of strange lands and countries,
costumes and customs, and many a mother's heart was broken with sorrow
that her boy had not survived the journeying.

Winter had passed and Spring had come and gone before all the wanderers
had returned, all the lost been given up, and for many a year to come,
peasants and nobles, with tear-dimmed eyes told the story of the German
children's march to the sea, and of the supposed martyrdom of their
lost leader, Nicholas--whose father, the afflicted parents whose homes
had been desolated by the Crusade, turned on in such a frenzy of
bitterness and anger, feeling that he had strongly influenced his son
to leadership that they laid violent hands on him and hanged him in
revenge.

Meanwhile, during all the weeks while Nicholas and his army were
marching southward on their way