It was impossible to ascend Mount Tabor without encountering a thousand dangers; but nothing intimidated the Christian warriors: the patriarch of Jerusalem, who marched at their head, showed them the true cross, and animated them by his example and his eloquent words. Enormous stones rolled from the heights occupied by the infidels, who poured down an endless shower of javelins and arrows upon all the roads which led to the top of the mountain. The valour of the soldiers of the cross braved all the efforts of the Saracens; the king of Jerusalem distinguished himself by prodigies of bravery, and killed two emirs with his own hand. The summit of the mountain being attained, the Crusaders dispersed the Mussulmans, and pursued them to the gates of their fortress: nothing could resist their arms. But all at once several of the leaders began to entertain suspicions regarding the intentions of the sultan of Damascus; and the fear of a surprise acted the more strongly on their minds from no one having foreseen it. Whilst the Mussulmans retired filled with terror behind their ramparts, a sudden panic seized the conquerors: the Crusaders renounced the attack of the fortress, and the whole Christian army retreated without effecting anything; as if it had only ascended Mount Tabor to contemplate the spot rendered sacred by the transfiguration of the Saviour. We could scarcely yield faith to the account of this precipitate flight, without the evidence of contemporary historians;[201] the ancient chronicles, according to their custom, do not fail to attribute to treachery an event they cannot comprehend; it appears to us, however, much more natural to suppose that the retreat of the Crusaders was produced by the discord and want of foresight which prevailed in all their undertakings.[202] This retreat had most fatal results; whilst the leaders reproached each other with the disgrace of the army and the egregious error they had committed, the knights and soldiers sank into a state of discouragement. The patriarch of Jerusalem refused from that time to bear the wood of the true cross in the van of the Crusaders, as he found the sight of it could neither revive their piety nor reanimate their courage. The kings and princes who directed the crusade, wishing to retrieve so shameful a reverse before they returned to Palestine, led the army towards Phœnicia. In this new campaign no exploit signalized their arms being winter, a great number of the soldiers, overcome by cold, remained abandoned on the roads, whilst others fell into the hands of the Bedouin Arabs. On Christmas eve, the Crusaders, who were encamped between Tyre and Sarphat, were surprised by a violent tempest; wind, rain, hail, whirlwinds, incessant peals of thunder killed their horses, carried away their tents, and scattered their baggage. This disaster completed their despondency, and created a belief that Heaven refused them its support.