danger, by means of expeditious messengers on a safe track, acquainted Godfrey and the rest of the approach of the Turks. They without a moment's delay, turned against the enemy, and delivered their associates from danger. For these were now indiscriminately slaughtered in their tents, unprepared for resistance, and filling the air with prayers and lamentations. Nor did the enemy take any particular aim, but trusting his arrows to the wind, he never, from the thickness of the ranks, drew his bow in vain. What alone retarded destruction was, that the attack took place near a thicket of canes, which prevented the Turks from riding full speed. At length, however, perceiving the advanced guard of the approaching chiefs, the Christians left the thicket, and shouting the military watch-word, "It is the will of God,"[1] they attack the scattered ranks of the enemy, making a signal to their companions, at the same time to assail them in the rear. Thus the Turks, pressed on either side, forthwith fled, shrieking with a dreadful cry, and raising a yell which reached the clouds. Nor had they recourse to their customary practice of a flying battle, but throwing down their bows, they manifested, by a flight of three successive days, something greater than mere human apprehension. Nor was there, indeed, any person to follow them; for our horses, scarce able to support life on the barren turf, were unequal to a vigorous pursuit: showing immediately their want of strength by their panting sides. Asia was formerly, it is true, a land most fruitful in corn; but, both in distant and in recent times, it had been so plundered by the savage Turks, that it could scarcely suffice for the maintenance of a small army, much less of a multitude, so vast as to threaten devouring whole harvests and drinking rivers dry. For, when they departed from Nice, they were still estimated at seven hundred thousand: of the remainder, part had been wasted by the sword, part by sickness, and still more had deserted to their homes.
- ↑ When Urban II addressed the multitude from a lofty scaffold in the market-place of Clermont, inciting the people to undertake the crusade, he was frequently interrupted by the shout of thousands in their rustic idiom exclaiming "Deus lo vult!" "It is indeed the will of God!" replied the pope; and let those words, the inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be for ever adopted as your war-cry."—Hardy.
