The famous monastery of Petcherski, where the monk Nestor wrote his Chronicle, shared the general destruction, and from amid its crashing ruins the pagans seized the massive gold cross which had adorned its cupola. From this victory the Horde pressed on through Volhynia and Galicia; Vladimir, Galitz, and other Red Russian towns fell beneath their attack, and then the conquering host branched off into two divisions; one, under the command of Batu, invaded Hungary; the other, led by Baidar and Kaidu (sons of Jagatai), carried desolation into the Polish provinces. The storm, sack, and burning of Lublin, Zawikhost, Sendomir, and Krakow, and the ravaging of the province of Breslau led up to the pitched battle of Liegnitz, where the might of Poland measured itself in desperate struggle with the Mongol wave. On the Christian side stood Duke Henry II. of Silesia; Boleslav, son of the Markgraf of Moravia; Miecislav, Duke of Ratibor; and Poppon d’Osterna, Provincial Master (in Prussia) of the Teutonic Order. Outnumbered by the Mongols, the Poles fought valiantly and with effect, till at last their spirit failed them; the great Tuk banner, lurid with flaring naphtha, and decorated with two gleaming sheep bones, transversely crossed, seemed to reproduce, amid unholy goblin flames, their own mystic symbol. The powers of darkness and the seething masses of human foes were too formidable a combination to fight against, and the chivalry of Poland broke and fled. Duke Henry on that awful night fought savagely as he fled, but was torn down at length by his untiring pursuers. Many a count and palatine shared his fate; from every corpse the savage victors cut an ear, and nine sacks full were sent to the Grand Khan, together with the head of Duke Henry, as a record of the slain.[38] In tracing the Mongol march of devastation through Silesia, Moravia, and Transylvania into Hungary, it is only necessary to observe that wholesale slaughter, destruction, and sweeping victory continued to characterise the advance of the Horde.[39] In Hungary men had awaited with cold and anxious hearts the onfall of the Mongols. Had they not heard with sorrow and foreboding at Christmas-tide last year the doleful intelligence of the fall of Kiev? And the wild stories of each fresh batch of fugitives--Kumans, Russians, Poles, Silesians--increased the terror of the Mongol name and brought their armies nearer. The King rallied his nobles round him (none too well-affected though they were) in a determined effort to stem this swarthy torrent that threatened to submerge the country. The prelates of the realm, good old fighting churchmen as they were, led their vassals in person to the fight. On the field of Mohi (name strangely like that of the other fatal battle in their history), on the banks of the Sajó, the cross of S. Stefan went down before the yak-tailed Tuk, and the nomad warriors triumphed over the Magyar chivalry. Hemmed in on all sides, the Hungarians were