Peter, who had delayed at Cologne, with a new German contingent followed the desolate track of his forerunners. He propitiated Coloman, the Hungarian king; but at Semlin, enraged at the marks of the discomfiture of Walter, he looted the town. At Nisch his army abused the hospitality of the Bulgarian prince, Nichita, who had given them the freedom of the market. The outraged people took terrible vengeance, and Peter’s host was driven out. At length, in sorry remnants, they reached Constantinople August (30, 1096). With the permission of the Emperor Alexius, they pitched their camp outside the city gates to wait for the new bands of crusaders. A third horde pressed upon the footsteps of Walter and Peter, led by Gottschalk, a German priest. Reaching Hungary in the midst of the late summer harvest, they forgot their religious vows in the abundance which surrounded them, and gave themselves up to every form of debauchery. King Coloman lulled the invaders into a feeling of security until, taking advantage of a time when they were unarmed, he gave orders for their extirpation. This was not difficult to accomplish, as the followers of Gottschalk were of a lower class than even those who had preceded them, largely vagabonds and brigands, ferocious only in crime, and without the spirit of noble and sustained adventure. A still more unconscionable crowd had in the meantime gathered on the banks of the Rhine and Moselle. A bigoted priest, Volkman, and a reprobate count, Emico, were chosen leaders. These men hoped to atone for the crimes of youth by excesses of cruelty wrought under the name of religion. This band met with terrible chastisement from the Hungarians at Merseburg. The walls of the town, which they had undermined, gave way under their assault and buried multitudes of the assailants in the falling débris. In the words of William of Tyre, the panegyrist of the later crusades, “God Himself spread terror through their ranks to punish their crimes and to fulfil the words of the Wise Man, ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth.’” Through Bulgaria their advance was of the nature of flight to gain the sheltering walls of Constantinople. Here, about the Greek capital, were collected the wrecks of various expeditions. If the memory of their misfortunes, augmented by their different stories of the journey, depressed and solemnized the crusaders, idleness and the sight of the riches of Constantinople inflamed their natural thirst for spoil. Homes and even churches in the suburbs were looted. The Emperor Alexius induced his unwelcome guests to cross the Bosporus into Nicomedia, where for two months he supplied their wants, as men feed wild beasts that they may not themselves fall prey to their rapacity.