They who be moved by a right lawful anxiety for this heritage of their ancestors make their demand of thee that thou choose between divers offers: either give up the siege of the city, and cease troubling the Christians, or, within three days from hence, try the power of our arms.

And that thou seek not after any, even a lawful, subterfuge, they offer thee further choice between divers determinations: either appear alone in person to fight with one of our princes, in order that, if victorious, thou mayest obtain all thou canst demand, or, if vanquished, thou mayest remain quiet; or, again, pick out divers of thine who shall fight, on the same terms, with the same number of ours; or, lastly, agree that the two armies shall prove, one against the other, the fortune of battle." "Peter," answered Corbogha ironically, "it is not likely that the affairs of the princes who have sent thee be in such state that they can thus offer me choice betwixt divers proposals, and that I should be bound to accept that which may suit me best.

My sword hath brought them to such a condition that they have not themselves any longer the power of choosing freely, and that they be constrained to shape and unshape their wishes according to my good pleasure.

Go, then, and tell these fools that all whom I shall find in full possession of all the powers of the manly age shall have their lives, and shall be reserved by me for my master's service, and that all other shall fall beneath my sword, as useless trees, so that there shall remain of them not even a faint remembrance.

Had I not deemed it more convenient to destroy them by famine than to smite them with the sword, I should already have gotten forcible mastery of the city, and they would have reaped the fruits of their voyage hither by undergoing the law of vengeance." On returning to camp, Peter the Hermit was about to set forth in detail, before all the people of the crusaders, the answer of Corbogha, his pride, his threats, and the pomp with which he was surrounded; but Godfrey de Bouillon, "fearing lest the multitude, already crushed beneath the weight of their woes, should be stricken with fresh terror," stopped Peter at the moment when he was about to begin his speech, and, taking him aside, prevailed upon him to tell the result of his mission in a few words, just that the Turks desired battle, and that it must be prepared for at once.