Moslems had mocked the Crusaders in their fancied security, beating before their eyes the Holy Crucifix, the Cross believed to be the very one on which Christ had shed his blood for the redemption of mankind, crying out in taunting accents, "Franks, it is the blessed Cross ; " and now they must pay for the sacrilege. Women and maidens were ravished ; the thirsting swords drank their fill. Through the streets ran the defeated, vainly seeking sanctuary. Some, wrote an eye witness, " were reft of their heads, while others, riddled through with arrows, were forced to leap down the towers. Others, after long torture, were burnt in the flames. In all the streets and squares there were to be seen piles of heads and hands and feet, and along the public ways foot and horse alike made passage over the bodies of the dead." A few of the leaders showed some compassion. Tancred of Sicily, after possessing himself of the golden hangings in the Temple, offered to protect those who sought sanctuary there, though he was unable to maintain his promise. Raymond actually saved those who reached the Tower of David. But the slaughter continued until arms were too weary to ply the sword and the dagger longer. And the next day the killing and the torture were resumed. " Such a slaughter of pagan folk had never been seen or heard of," wrote a chronicler. " None knows their number save God alone." Between these two periods of slaughter there had