At the siege of Antioch were their chief disasters; they suffered from hunger, disease, inundations of the Orontes, attacks of the enemy, until the living were hardly enough to bury the dead. The courage of many gave way; Robert of Normandy retired to Laodicea, and did not return till he had been three times summoned in the name of the Christian Faith; and Peter the Hermit himself, a man of more enthusiasm than steadiness, began to despair, and secretly fled from the camp in the night. As his defection would have done infinite harm to the cause, Tancred pursued him and brought him back to the camp, and Godfrey obliged him to swear that he would not again leave them. In the spring of 1098 a great battle took place, in which Godfrey, Robert, and Tancred each performed feats of the highest prowess. In the midst of the battle, Tancred made his esquire swear never to reveal his exploits, probably as a mortification of his own vanity in hearing them extolled. After a siege of more than seven months, Boemond effected an entrance by means of an understanding with some of the Eastern Christians within the town. It was taken, with great slaughter, and became a principality ruled by the Sicilian Norman. Another great victory opened the way to Palestine, and the Crusaders advanced, though still very slowly. During the march, one of the knights, named Geoffroi de la Tour, is said to have had a curious adventure. He was hunting in a forest, when he came upon a lion struggling in the folds of a huge serpent; he killed the serpent, and released the lion, which immediately fawned upon him and caressed him. It followed him affectionately throughout the Crusade, but when he embarked to return to Europe, the sailors refused to admit the lion into their vessel. The faithful creature plunged into the sea to follow its master, swam till its strength was exhausted, and then sank and was drowned. [Footnote: Michaud’s _Histoire des Croisades_ gives this story from two authorities.] It was on a glowing morning of June, 1098, that the Crusading host, Tancred first of all, came in sight of the object of all their toils--the City set upon a Hill. There it stood, four-square, on the steep, solid, fortification-like rocks, rising from the rugged ravines, Kedron, Siloam, Jehoshaphat, Gehenna, that form, as it were, a deep moat round the walls, and natural defences, bulwarks planted by the Lord’s own hand around His own City, while He was still her Tower of Salvation, and had not left her to the spoiler. There stood the double walls, the low-built, flat-roofed, windowless houses, like so many great square blocks, here and there interspersed with a few cypresses and aloes, the mighty Tower of David, the Cross of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and far above it, alas! the dome of the Mosque of Omar, with its marble gates and porphyry pillars, on the flat space on Mount Moriah, where the Temple had once flashed back the sunlight from its golden roof.