"Ha, Messers," the Marshal greeted them. "We are well quit of that cold Sclavonian land. Now we may look forward to such opportunities as all puissant knights must crave."
"It is said there are pirates in these seas," returned Hugh. "Dost think there is any chance we may happen upon them, Lord Marshal?"
"Nay, I fear we may expect no affair of arms until we enter the realms of the Emperor. By St. Remigius, no pirate that was whole in his wit would think to assail such a foison of ships as we see about us!"
Hugh felt a hand on his arm, and turned to look into the anxious face of Ralph.
"An it please you, Messer Hugh," said the bowman, with an obeisance to the group of lords and knights, "I heard you speak of pirates. But in Zara they told me that the rocks hereabouts are occupied by hordes of harpies and sea-demons in the shape of wondrously beautiful women, who come out to lure ships to destruction and in the night draw men down to their caves under the sea."
An outburst of exclamations greeted this statement, and Villehardouin and his companions crossed themselves hastily.
"I will make note of this," said the Marshal earnestly. "I take it kindly of you, good varlet, that you brought such a danger to my attention. We will have the priests exorcise the demons, and at evening the bulwarks shall be sprinkled with holy water so that they may not climb into our midst. There be many dangers for those who would venture across the world, Messers, but an the Saints aid us we shall outface all the Powers of Darkness."
Despite Ralph's fears, the fleet passed unhindered along the forbidding coasts of the Adriatic and reached in safety the island of Corfu, off the western coast of Greece—or Roumania, as it was called in those days, when it constituted the most western province of the crumbling Empire of the New Rome, inheritor of the traditions, the language, the laws and pretensions, but not the virile power, of the Elder Rome. Here at Corfu the host tarried for three weeks, making such final preparations as were deemed necessary for the great task ahead of them. The delay was unavoidable, but it gave opportunity for a new outburst of dissension amongst the Crusaders.
How it began no man could say. Jealousy played a considerable part; gossip and rumour did the rest. The smaller lords resented the centralisation of authority in the hands of a narrow group of powerful barons. They found sympathisers amongst the considerable numbers of masterless men and the burgher companies. Discontented, uncertain of their leaders' actual intentions, it needed only the whisper of religious outlawry to develop open mutiny in the ranks of this minority.
Men told each other with bated breaths that Pope Innocent had despatched against them the ban of excommunication. All the terrible weapons which the superstition of the Middle Ages placed in the hands of the Church were supposed to hang over the heads of the host. A species of hysteria possessed the camp. Men who feared nothing physical trembled before these spiritual forces. The more ignorant expected that they might be struck by lightning bolts or devastated by plagues or perhaps paralysed in their limbs. Matters went from bad to worse.