The discrepancy in the figures is a sufficient proof of their untruthfulness.

The last number was enough to disquiet the crusaders, already much reduced by so many marches, battles, sufferings, and desertions.

An old Mussulman warrior, celebrated at that time throughout Western Asia, Corbogha, sultan of Mossoul (hard by what was ancient Nineveh), commanded all the hostile forces, and four days after the capture of Antioch he was already completely round the place, enclosing the crusaders within the walls of which they had just become the masters.

They were thus and all on a sudden besieged in their turn, having even in the very midst of them, in the citadel which still held out, a hostile force.

Whilst they had been besieging Antioch, the Emperor Alexis Comnenus had begun to march with an army to get his share in their successes, and was advancing into Asia Minor when he heard that the Mussulmans, in immense numbers, were investing the Christian army in Antioch, and not in a condition, it was said, to hold out long.