The very hugeness of the host hindered its hasting through this land of torment. One Sunday five hundred persons fell down and perished with thirst, and those who toiled on called them happy; for in heaven one never dreams of cool fields and sweet, cold water, yet all the time is burned within by fire unquenchable. When a tiny stream was reached--what was it among so many? Women fell dying, with their babes sucking at their breasts; and the host pressed on, for help there was none from man!
The horses, poor brutes, died by scores; knights wept when they saw their _destrers_--often better loved than brothers--sink down; saw their dear falcons and hunting dogs perish. Yet who could think of beasts, where men were staggering with open mouths, gasping for each breath of wind to lighten their burning torments? Still the host pressed on, though, far back as eye might scan, the carcasses and the crows marked out the line of marching.
On and on! and in the midst of the torment there were strange hours of ecstasy, of rapture over visions passing human ken. Men raved of angels and a heavenly city, and streets of gold and living fountains; and the last word of the dying was "Jerusalem!" while the shout that went down the parching host when the sun beat fiercest and all the watercourses were dust, was, "God wills it! Jerusalem!" So the march kept on; and though thousands fell, none turned back, nor would have, had the backward track been of less peril than that before.
Richard bore the privations with a steadiness which made good the opinion of his followers that his frame was built of iron--not of flesh and blood. Yet his heart was cut, as never in this way before, to see his men dying before his face, and he unable to aid. Many a poor Auvergner called to his lord, and bade him tell some mother or wife or sweetheart in far St. Julien that he had struggled hard to gain the Holy City, but God had willed otherwise; and the seigneur would bear witness that he had been a faithful vassal and true Christian.
Rollo, great steed, endured the thirst with a quiet fortitude that let him survive when half the cavaliers of the army were bestriding mules and oxen. Sebastian, too, bore up, shrewdly remarking, as was his way, that his life of fast and abstinence had advantages in this world as well as in the world to come. Herbert, too, seemed unconquerable; but what with the losses at Dorylæum and the thirst, Richard saw his company thinned in a way to make his heart sick, even had this been all.