. . . . . . . . . . "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 Constantinople, where he found Walter the
Pennyless awaiting him, he was hospitably received by the Emperor
Alexius. It might have been expected that the sad reverses they had
undergone would have taught his followers common prudence; but,
unhappily for them, their turbulence and love of plunder were not to
be restrained. Although they were surrounded by friends, by whom all
their wants were liberally supplied, they could not refrain from
rapine. In vain the Hermit exhorted them to tranquillity; he possessed
no more power over them, in subduing their passions, than the