The departure and resistance of Tancred disturbed the joy which the success of his policy had given Alexis. He applauded himself for having softened, by his presents, the principal leaders of the crusade; but he did not so entirely depend upon his means of corruption as to be perfectly free from apprehension. Every day brought new Crusaders, whom he must seduce and load with presents; the very riches he displayed to them might, in the end, awaken their ambition, and inspire them with most fatal designs. He felt by no means secure against their enterprizes until all the armies of the West were on the other side of the Bosphorus. There, without the power of insulting the capital of the empire, they turned all their attention to their preparations for the war against the Saracens. As the Crusaders advanced across the plains of Bithynia, they saw, seeking refuge in their tents, several soldiers of Peter’s army, who having escaped from the sword of the Saracens, had lived concealed in the mountains and forests. They were clothed in the rags of misery, and with lamentations and tears related the disasters of the first army of the Christians. On the east they pointed to the fortress in which the companions of Rinaldo, pressed by hunger and thirst, had surrendered to the Turks, who had massacred them all. Near to that they showed them the mountains, at the foot of which had perished Walter and his whole army. Everywhere the Crusaders encountered the remains of their brethren; everywhere they found reason to deplore the imprudence and disasters of the first soldiers of the cross; but nothing affected them so deeply as the sight of the camp in which Walter had left the women and the sick, when he was forced by his soldiers to advance to the city of Nicea. There the Christians had been surprised by the Mussulmans, at the moment their priests were celebrating the sacrifice of the mass. Women, children, old men, all whom weakness or sickness detained in the camp, pursued to the foot of their altars, had been either borne away into slavery, or slaughtered by a pitiless enemy. The remembrance of so great a calamity stifled discord, silenced ambition, and rekindled zeal for the deliverance of the holy places. The leaders profited by this terrible lesson, and laid down useful regulations for the maintenance of discipline. The formidable army of the Crusaders advanced in the best order through the country of the infidels, and commenced the war with the first days of the spring.