A band of Christians from Bethlehem came to meet them and to plead with them not to forget the need of the village where Christ was born in their eagerness to rescue the town where He died. Tancred went with them, and a band of brave men followed him. He surprised the village at night, and the banner of the Cross waved over it in the morning sunshine. Then he rode back to join the army that marched towards Jerusalem. Before night fell again the Crusaders were encamped before the Holy City. The soldiers were as eager to attack the city as the boldest of the knights. Although they had no engines that were strong enough and high enough to throw stones into the city, they tried to take it at once. They were driven back. But they were not hopeless, as they had often been before. They planned how they could best attack it again. To the south and east of Jerusalem the walls of the city rise from deep gorges. The Crusaders could not hope to build engines that would have power to shoot weapons and stones across these chasms. So they pitched their tents only to the north, and to the west of the city, and laid siege to the walls from St. Stephen’s gate at the north-east corner to the Tower of David at the south-west. Then the knights looked for wood to make engines and platforms. They broke through the bands of Saracens who guarded the roads, and brought tools and food from ships that had come to Joppa, but still they looked in vain for trees large enough to make into battering rams and engines. One day Tancred and his men saw some trees in the distance. They looked large and strong, but he had so often hoped in vain to find what he wished, that he would scarcely let himself believe what his eyes saw. This time his hope was not in vain. When he reached the trees, he found that they were truly great forest trees, and though they were thirty miles from Jerusalem, he and his men soon cut down as many as were needed and dragged them to the camp. All this time the sun had blazed down on the crusading army. In the heat and drought they dared not drink because the Moslems had poisoned the wells. But nothing could daunt their courage now, for the walls of the Holy City rose before them. The whole army fasted for three days. Then they marched round Jerusalem. Tancred and some other knights lingered on Mount Olivet, and thought of what had happened there hundreds of years ago. On the mountain there they were standing at about the same height as the walls of the city on the other side of the valley, and as they stood, they saw the Moslems mock them, by fixing crosses on the ramparts, and flinging mud at them to show how much they scorned the Christians and their worship. As the knights came back to their camp the sun set and the Moslem call for prayer rang out from the minarets of the city. It was answered by the chant of the Crusaders, ‘So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun.’