While they were being defeated in this manner, and were fleeing day and night from the face of the Franks, the prince who ruled Nicaea, [135] frightened out of his mind, after the siege had ended, happened to meet a group of ten thousand Arabs, who said to him, "O least of men, why are you fleeing in miserable fright?" He replied, "I thought that I had destroyed and killed every last Frank, and I thought that I would deliver them to eternal captivity; I assumed that I would conquer them as they moved forward in small groups, and I would bind them and lead them away to distant lands. But a large army appeared, and the fields and mountains were covered with great numbers of them, and they seemed to occupy every inch of our entire land." The capture which he mentioned referred to the army of Peter the Hermit, and the multitude that followed to those who lately had subjugated Nicaea. "There, when we had seen an army of so many people, with divisions growing like wheat, against whom we judged correctly that we stood no chance of defending ourselves (for there was no safe place), we thought it best to escape imminent death by fleeing swiftly. Although we are now at some distance, nevertheless we are shaken by the terrible memory of those men whom we saw, and the momentary encounter has left us frightened of their ferocity. If you have any faith in my report of what happened, you will retreat from this place because, if their forces find you here, you will undoubtedly pay for your folly many times over." They decided that what they heard was credible, quickly reversed direction,[136] and scattered all over Romania.