The city was lost by the cowardice of the Governor. A breach had been made in an unprotected part of the wall, but being narrow the citizens so valiantly defended it that they compelled the Sultan to retire; but the Governor, fancying that the Persians had succeeded in forcing an entrance, retired into the citadel. Thinking themselves deserted, a panic seized the Armenians and about fifty thousand of them fled into the country from the gates on the opposite side of the city. The retreat of the Persians was countermanded, the city was taken, orders being given to put every man to the sword. Human blood flowed in torrents. So great was the carnage that the streets were literally choked up with dead bodies, and the waters of the river Akhurian flowed in crimson tides. After his first fury was somewhat abated, Alp Arslan gave orders to seize the most wealthy citizens still alive and torture them to make them reveal places where their treasures were hidden. Then he pillaged the thousand and one churches, murdered all the priests found therein,--some were drowned, some he flayed alive, others died under tortures as excruciating as most fiendish imagination could conceive or invent. Finally, gathering his captives--men, women and children and his plunder, Alp Arslan returned to Persia. We must leave for awhile the bleeding Armenians whose kingdom had been annihilated, to the tender mercies of the wicked, to follow the path of rapine and horror as the torrents of unspeakable Turks flowed westward. They captured cities, put the inhabitants of Asia Minor to the sword and devastated the interior provinces to convert them into pasture lands for their nomad followers.