Behind these followed a few Saracens who had been captured at the late night surprise of Marhala. They were led, pinioned, by soldiers. The King of the Vagabonds, his seneschal the Bacon-cutter and several of the men of their band had been joined to this escort by order of Bohemond, Prince of Taranto, and chief of the army, who himself closed the procession, accompanied by a large number of crusading seigneurs, casque on head and lance in hand.
This funeral train marched around the market-place, surrounded by an ever-swelling crowd, and ranked itself before the pyre, where the stake and the spit were in readiness.
"The miracle of the lance!" cried the crowd, impatient to see Barthelmy cross a flaming pyre in his shirt and without burning—"the miracle of the lance!"
"Woe is me!" muttered William IX., redoubling the blows with which he was lacerating his breast. "Woe is me! I am so great a sinner that perhaps the Eternal will not deign to manifest His omnipotence by a prodigy before me!"
"Be comforted, my son!" answered the papal legate. "The Eternal will manifest Himself in order to confirm your faith, seeing that you have been touched by grace, and humble yourself before His Church."
"Yesterday, father, I was an unclean criminal, an infamous evildoer, a miserable blind man. To-day my eyes are open to the truth. I see the everlasting flames that await me. Have pity upon me!"
"Give up all your goods to the Church, remain poor as Job, the Church will then intercede for your salvation," replied the legate, issuing his orders to his deacon to set fire to the pyre.
Immediately, walking almost without danger over the length of the path that crossed the paling, hidden by the height of the flames kindled at the four sides of the pyre, Peter Barthelmy seemed in the eyes of the credulous multitude actually to traverse the lake of fire. The serf saw, across a thick cloud of smoke that helped to increase the illusion, Peter Barthelmy, looking as if he was wading through flames up to the hip, run rapidly across the full length of the pyre, from which he emerged again brandishing his lance. The crowd, blind and fanatic, clapped their hands and shouted: "A miracle! A miracle!" Shocked at the impudence of the friar, who so shamelessly imposed upon the credulity of those poor people, Fergan decided to administer to him a stinging lesson. Affecting to yield to religious enthusiasm, he cried out: "Peter Barthelmy is a saint, a great saint! Whoever can secure the smallest bit of his clothing, or of his blessed body, even if but one hair, will be delivered of all ills!" The mob received Fergan's suggestion with fanatic approval. The file of soldiers, that held the multitude far enough back from the pyre, was broken through, and the most maniacal of these fanatics rushed upon Peter Barthelmy at the moment when, leaving the pyre a few steps behind him, he was brandishing his lance. An incredible scene ensued thereupon, related by Baudry, archbishop of Dole, an eye-witness of the occurrence, as follows in his "History of the Capture of Jerusalem:"
"When Peter Barthelmy emerged from the pyre with his holy lance, the crowd rushed upon him and trampled him under foot, each wishing to touch him and carry off a piece of his shirt. He received several wounds in the legs. Bits of flesh were cut from his body. His ribs were knocked in. His spine was fractured. He would, in our opinion, have died on the spot, had not Raymond, seigneur of Pelet, an illustrious cavalier, quickly gathered a platoon of soldiers, thrown himself with them into the midst of the mob, and, at the risk of his own life, saved poor Peter Barthelmy."
After this rude lesson given the cheat, Fergan approached the group of soldiers that were transporting the contriver of miracles in a dying state to a neighboring house. "The accursed brutes! The savages!" murmured the Marseilles priest, gasping for breath: "Have you ever seen such bedeviled rascals! The idea of wishing to turn me into relics!"