“‘Nay, my brother,’ said the count, ‘a whole pig may not be eaten in a single meal, and we must not excite suspicions.’”
The peasant went away, and presently returned with all his family—though, curiously enough, Foulcher says nothing at all about his wife. Perhaps she was left behind, like Creusa. The count mounts the ass, takes the child in his arms, and they start. On the road the child began to cry, and “to torment the count with its wailing.” He did not know how to appease it; “for Jocelyn had never learned the art of soothing infants by caresses;” he began at first to think of throwing away the baby, or of leaving it by the wayside, and so getting rid of a travelling companion who might bring them all to grief; but “perceiving that this project did not please the peasant, and fearing to afflict him,” he continued, with the greatest consideration, to endure “this new trouble,” till they arrived at his castle at Turbessel, where there was great rejoicing. Can there be a quainter figure than this of the count mounted on the ass, carrying the squalling baby, and divided between rage at its screams and gratitude to the peasant, his deliverer?
Meantime, the king was not prospering. Balak, in a rage that one of his enemies had escaped him, hastened himself to the castle of Khortbert with so large an army as to deprive Baldwin of any hope of success. The fort was built on a chalk hill easy to cut into. Balak sent sappers, who made excavations under the principal tower, and then filling the cavern with wood, he set fire to it. When the wood was consumed the chalk was softened and the tower came down with a crash. Then Baldwin, against his will, surrendered unconditionally. Life was granted to him, to Galeran, and to the king’s nephew. But the poor faithful Armenians, the cause of Jocelyn’s escape and the massacre of the garrison, were treated with the most cruel inhumanity. All were murdered, most by tortures of the most horrid description, of which sawing in halves and roasting alive, being buried alive, and being set up naked as marks for children to fire arrows at, are given as a few specimens. Jocelyn, who had been hastily collecting an army, gave up the design of a rescue in despair, and went to Jerusalem.