At Marasch the host was rejoined by Baldwin, whose wife died a few days before his arrival. His brother Godfrey,[295] too, was still suffering from the effects of his combat with the wild beast, and all the chiefs of the crusade, indignant at his conduct at Tarsus, gave him but a chilling and gloomy reception.[296] The spirit of individual aggrandizement was still the strongest passion in the breast of Baldwin, and the coldness of his companions in arms yielded him no great encouragement to stay and employ his efforts for the general object of the expedition, rather than for the purposes of his own selfish ambition. He very soon abandoned the rest of the chiefs, contriving to seduce two hundred knights, and a large party of foot-soldiers, to join him; and as his course was thenceforth separate from the rest of the crusaders, I shall follow the example of Guibert, and briefly trace it out, till it falls again into the general stream of events. Accompanied by Pancrates,[297] an Armenian, who painted in glowing colours the wealth of the provinces on the other side of the Euphrates,[298] and the facility with which they might be conquered, he set out with the vague hope of plundering something and overcoming some one, he knew not well what or whom. However, his skill as a commander was certain to find matter on which to exercise itself, in a country possessed by an active enemy, while his rapacious propensities were very likely to be gratified in a rich and plentiful land, where the many were oppressed by the few. Turbessel[299] and Ravendel fell immediately into his hands, and were at first placed under the command of his companion, Pancrates; but beginning to suspect that personage, he forced him to deliver up the cities, by imprisonment, torture, and a threat of having him torn limb from limb.[300] He then passed onward, crossed the Euphrates, and at the invitation of Thoros, sovereign of Edessa, entered that city, to free it from the power of the Turks. Thoros, a weak and childless old man, was driven by the inhabitants--who were terrified at their infidel neighbours, and had no confidence in their feeble monarch--to adopt the brother of Godfrey, with all the curious ceremonies then practised on such occasions. He passed his own shirt over Baldwin's shoulders,[301] pressed him to his naked breast, and publicly declared him his son.[302]