Tancred with his troop departing from Malmistra, passed in triumph along the coasts of Cilicia, and penetrated as far as Alexandretta, of which he easily took possession. In proportion as he made himself dreaded by his enemies, he made himself the more beloved by his companions. When he rejoined the Christian army covered with glory and loaded with booty, he heard all around him nothing but praises of his moderation and valour. The presence of Baldwin, who had preceded him, on the contrary, only excited murmurs, as they attributed to him the death of so many Christian soldiers. Godfrey loudly blamed the ambition and avarice of his brother. But caring little for these reproaches, Baldwin yielded to his rival, without pain, the suffrages of the army, and preferred a principality to the love and esteem of the Crusaders; and fortune soon offered him an opportunity of realizing his ambitious projects. During the siege of Nice, an Armenian prince named Pancratius had come to join the Christian army. In his youth he had been king of northern Iberia. Driven from his kingdom by his own subjects, and for a length of time a prisoner at Constantinople, he had followed the Crusaders in the hope of re-conquering his states. He had particularly attached himself to the fortunes of Baldwin, whose aspiring character he understood, and whom he hoped to associate in his designs. He spoke to him continually of the rich provinces which extended along the two shores of the Euphrates. These provinces, he said, were inhabited by a great number of Christians, and the Crusaders had but to present themselves there to make themselves masters of them. These discourses inflamed the ambition of Baldwin, who resolved a second time to quit the main army of the Christians, and to go to the banks of the Euphrates, to conquer a country of such boasted wealth. He had just lost his wife, Gundechilde, who had accompanied him to the crusade, and who was buried with great pomp by the Christians. This loss did not stop him in the execution of his projects. As he was not beloved in the Christian army, when he was ready to set out no leader was willing to join him, and several even of his own soldiers refused to accompany him. He could only take with him from a thousand to fifteen hundred foot-soldiers, a troop despised in the army, and two hundred horsemen, seduced by the hopes of pillage. But nothing could abate his ardour, and as the chiefs of the crusade had decided in a council that nobody should be allowed to withdraw from the standard of the army, he set out the day before this decision was published in the camp of the Christians.[90] At the head of his little army he advanced into Armenia, finding no enemy able to impede his march. Consternation reigned among the Turks, and the Christians, everywhere eager to throw off the yoke of the Mussulmans, became powerful auxiliaries to the Crusaders.