Bayezid and watch the executions. Jean Le Maingre, called "Boucicaut", was recognized in the line, and Nevers fell to his knees before the Sultan and indicated with intertwined fingers that they were like brothers. Thus convinced that Boucicaut was worth a noble ransom, he was spared and grouped with the other high nobles. The killing continued from early morning until late afternoon, at which point Bayezid, either himself sickened by the bloodshed or convinced by his ministers that he was unnecessarily enraging Christendom against him, called off the executioners. Leaving aside the more hyperbolic account, the number of dead is said to have ranged from 300 to 3,000, though the number of dead on the battlefield was much more. Of those who fled the battlefield, few survived. So many attempted to swim to the boats in the Danube that several sank from the load; afterward, those on the boats pushed away those trying to board. Many who attempted to swim all the way across the river drowned. Sigismund, fearful of Wallachian treachery, sailed to the Black Sea and Constantinople before making his way home by sea. Those Crusaders who made it across the Danube and tried to return home by land found that the land they were traveling over had already been stripped of forage by the retreating force of Wallachians. Reduced to wandering through the woods in rags and robbed of whatever possessions they had, many of the starved survivors died along the way. Perhaps the most famous of the few who reached home after this journey was Count Rupert of Bavaria (), eldest son of the future King Rupert of Germany, who arrived at his doorstep in beggar's rags and died several days later from his trials. The captives were forced to march the 350-mile length to Gallipoli, stripped of clothing down to their shirts and most without shoes, with hands tied and beaten by their captors. At Gallipoli, the noble captives were kept in the upper rooms of a tower while the 300 prisoners that were the Sultan's share of the common captives were kept below. The ship carrying Sigismund passed within half a mile of the tower as it went through the Hellespont, for which the Turks lined the captives along the shore and mockingly called out for Sigismund to come and rescue his comrades. Sigismund, while in Constantinople, had made overtures to ransom the captives,