For seven weeks the Crusaders laid siege to the city. During those days there was a great deal of fighting with the Turks outside the wall. Tancred was always in the thick of the battle, and ever where he was, the army of the Holy Cross carried all before it, and the enemy fled to their tents. But the city still held out, and from its walls arrows and stones hurtled down with deadly aim. There was one huge Moslem who never seemed to miss his mark. He hurled stones and arrows and javelins, and wherever they fell they brought death. One day he grew so bold that he threw away his shield and stood on the wall and scorned his foes beneath. A hundred bows were stretched tight, a hundred arrows whizzed through the air, but when they had all fallen to earth, he still stood there unharmed. It seemed as if he bore a charmed life. But he had insulted the armies of the Cross, and Godfrey had heard him do it. A thrill went through the camp as the German leader raised his bow and arrow. No other arm was raised. Godfrey’s arrow sped alone through the air. A breathless moment passed. Then the body of the giant fell forward from the wall, dead, shot through the heart, into the moat below. The knights could not understand how it was that the people in Nicæa were not suffering from hunger. Those who shot down the stones and the arrows looked strong and well. Yet the armies had watched the gates night and day for seven weeks. At last they found out that when night fell and there was no moon, food was brought to Nicæa across the lake and pulled up into the city. At first it seemed as if nothing could be done to stop this, but at last a plan was made. The lake stretched away from Nicæa till only a strip of land lay between it and the narrow sea. The Crusaders sent messengers to the Emperor and asked him to give them ships and sledges. This he gladly did, because he wished them to think that he meant to help them in all their battles. Then in the darkness when all was ready, a band of knights spurred their horses to the narrow sea. They hoisted the ships on to the sledges and dragged them over the sandy ridge, and then launched the vessels in the lake. When the daylight came and the Moslems looked out, they saw their enemies’ ships riding under the walls of their city and knew that no help could come to them by land or sea. The Crusaders were delighted. ‘Only a few more hours,’ they thought, ‘and Nicæa must be in our hands.’ In a few more hours Nicæa had fallen, but the flag that floated from its towers was the flag of Greece. Every one was full of anger and surprise. The soldiers gathered round the knights. ‘What does it mean?’ they asked. But the knights could not tell them. By some means two Greek generals had entered Nicæa and had made the people there believe that it would be much better for them to yield to the Emperor than to the armies from the North.