Meanwhile a soldier had made his escape from the town, and having reached Constantinople, told the news of these disasters to Peter the Hermit. At the prayer of Peter, the Emperor Alexius sent forces to rescue the garrison of Civitot, and the remnant of the army of the Cross was brought in safety to Constantinople. On their arrival, however, Alexius commanded them to disperse and return to their own country, and he bought from each man his arms; thus at once depriving him of the means of violence, and supplying him with money for the journey. This policy on the part of the emperor has given rise to an accusation against him of having betrayed the Crusaders, and entered into an alliance with the Turks. No such motive is required to account for the conduct of Alexius. He would necessarily be glad to purge his dominions from a number of lawless vagabonds, who committed every species of iniquity in the name of a holy cause, and who, as his allies, were more to be dreaded than the Turks his enemies. While the expedition of Peter the Hermit thus came to an end, other bands of fanatics and adventurers were following in his steps, without being destined to reach Constantinople. The accounts of these expeditions are inevitably obscure; but the information we possess on the subject is not of a kind to induce a desire for further details. It is related that a multitude of 200,000 persons, without even a nominal leader, passed through Germany towards the south of Europe. Their course was marked by excesses of every kind; men and women lived in a state of debauchery, and indulged in drunken orgies, obtaining supplies by plundering the surrounding country. Every Jew who fell into their hands was put to death, and the fanatic multitude declared it to be the will of heaven that they should exterminate the nation who had rejected the Saviour. A terrible retribution, however, was at hand, and the sacred emblem of the Cross was purified from the stains with which it had been covered by the perpetrators of these enormities. At Merseburg, a large Hungarian force opposed the advancing multitude, who attacked that city with fury. A breach had been made in the walls, and the fall of Merseburg seemed inevitable, when some strange and sudden terror, which has never been accounted for, seized the besieging army, and they gave up the attack, and fled in dismay over the country. The Hungarians pursued them on every side, and mowed them down by hundreds. Day after day the slaughter went on, until the fields were strewn with corpses and the Danube was red with blood. Such was the fate of the first bands of Crusaders who set out towards the Holy Land. More than a quarter of a million persons had already perished by famine or disease, or by the swords of the Turks or Hungarians, whose vengeance they had excited by acts of violence and plunder. Meanwhile many powerful princes of the West were occupied in collecting troops and preparing to take the field. Among these were