"Exterminate this band of vagabonds!" shouted back the soldiers, thrusting about them with their lances and swords. "Death to these jackals who mean to devour the prey of the lion!"
As Fergan advanced along this street he witnessed shocking scenes. The sight of a gigantic soldier carrying, strung on his upright lance, three little children from five to six months old, was a spectacle never to be forgotten. Suddenly he found himself shoved hither and thither, and presently shut in within a circle of armed men who seemed to be arranged in some kind of order before the entrance of one of the most splendid palaces on the street. Lemon and oleander trees, planted in boxes, but now broken in two and upset, still ornamented the moresque balustrades of the terrace. The band, among which there were several women, and that left a wide empty space free between itself and the walls, emitted yells of savage impatience. Presently, the sleeves of his brown frock rolled back to the elbows, and his hands red with blood, a monk leaned forward over the balustrade of the terrace. It was Peter the Hermit, the companion of Walter the Pennyless. The identical Cuckoo Peter, whose hollow eyes glistened with savage fanaticism, now called out to the crowd in a hoarse voice: "My brothers in Christ, are you ready? Draw near and receive your share of the booty."
"We are ready, holy man, and have been long waiting," answered several bandits; "we are losing our time here; they are pillaging elsewhere, holy father in God! We want our share of the booty."
"Here comes your share of this great feast, my brothers in Christ. The vapor of the infidels' blood rises towards the Lord like an incense of myrrh and balsam! Let not one of the miscreants, that we are about to throw down to you from this terrace, escape with his life!"
Peter the Hermit vanished and almost immediately the bust of a Saracen, clad in the purple caftan embroidered in gold, appeared above. Although bound hands and feet, the wild jumps of the unhappy man showed that he resisted with all his might the efforts of those who strove to throw him down into the street. A few minutes later, however, half his body had been forced over the balustrade. He straightened up once more, but immediately was hurled into space and dropped, head foremost, thirty feet below. A joyous clamor broke out at the man's fall, and redoubled when, with a dull thud, his skull struck the pavement and broke. He lived a few seconds longer, and strove to turn on his side while emitting violent imprecations. But soon, riddled with sword thrusts, broken with clubs and mauled with stones, there remained of him but a mangled lump in the midst of a pool of blood. "Father in God," cried out the mob, "the job is done! Hurry up! Send us another!"