ns of Nissa, who had throughout mistrusted the crusaders, and
were prepared for the worst, sallied out immediately, and took signal
vengeance. The spoilers were cut to pieces, and the townspeople
pursuing the Hermit, captured all the women and children who had lagged
in the rear, and a great quantity of baggage. Peter hereupon turned
round and marched back to Nissa, to demand explanation of the Duke of
Bulgaria. The latter fairly stated the provocation given, and the
Hermit could urge nothing in palliation of so gross an outrage. A
negotiation was entered into which promised to be successful, and the
Bulgarians were about to deliver up the women and children when a party
of undisciplined crusaders, acting solely upon their own suggestion,
endeavoured to scale the walls and seize upon the town. Peter in vain
exerted his authority; the confusion became general, and after a short
but desperate battle, the crusaders threw down their arms and fled in
all directions. Their vast host was completely routed, the slaughter
being so great among them as to be counted, not by hundreds, but by
thousands.

It is said that the Hermit fled from this fatal field to a forest a few
miles from Nissa, abandoned by every human creature. It would be
curious to know whether, after so dire a reverse,

. . . . . . . . . . "His enpierced breast
Sharp sorrow did in thousand pieces rive,"

or whether his fiery zeal still rose superior to calamity, and pictured
the eventual triumph of his cause. He, so lately the leader of a
hundred thousand men, was now a solitary skulker in the forests, liable
at every instant to be discovered by some pursuing Bulgarian, and cut
off in mid career. Chance at last brought him within sight of an
eminence where two or three of his bravest knights had collected five
hundred of the stragglers. These gladly received the Hermit, and a
consultation having taken place, it was resolved to gather together the
scattered remnants of the army. Fires were lighted on the hill, and
scouts sent out in all directions for the fugitives. Horns were sounded
at intervals to make known that friends were near, and before nightfall
the Hermit saw himself at the head of seven thousand men. During the
succeeding day he was joined by twenty thousand more, and with this
miserable remnant of his force he pursued his route towards
Constantinople. The bones of the rest mouldered in the forests of
Bulgaria.

On his arrival at Constantinopl