But this Empire, against which was launched the comparatively feeble forces of the Fourth Crusade, was a husk, a sham, a thing of empty pomp, massive and imposing to outward seeming, inwardly a rotten core ready to fall to pieces at the first vigorous push which pierced the exterior covering. It seemed incredible that such could be the case. The knights and soldiers of the host experienced the same dumb awe which gripped the Crusaders of Godfrey de Bouillon and Frederick Barbarossa. As the vast skyline of the city loomed clearer and clearer over the water, their astonishment was changed to fear. For the first time they appreciated the full extent of their undertaking.
"St. Cuthbert be my guardian, Messer Hugh!" gasped Ralph. "But that is no city! It is a whole country by itself!"
"Ay, Ralph, never saw I the like!" assented Hugh. "Venice is but a village compared to this. There must be as many people in it as in all England."
"You say truth, Hugh," said Matteo, beside them. "I doubt if England—ay, or Northern France, holds more souls than you could count in Constantinople and its suburbs."
Their galley was close in-shore, and the panorama of the Marmoran coast unrolled itself before them. For miles back they had passed a succession of well-built towns and villages, the larger ones walled and gated against attack. Interspersed between were villas and palaces, farmsteads and monasteries. Hugh noted that none of the frequent churches had towers such as were common in France and England. Instead there were light, soaring domes, which gave an effect of ease and spaciousness to the smallest structure. People clustered on the shore to watch the fleet pass, but there were no evidences of panic fear. Farmers worked in the fields and fishermen cast their nets. Now and then the sweet chime of church-bells came to their ears, and sometimes they saw religious processions passing along the roads.
"It would seem that they set much store by religion," observed Hugh.
"Sure, Messer Hugh, I thought they were idolaters or somewhat of that like," said Ralph. "They are never Christians, are they?"
Matteo laughed.
"Your view would please the Pope and his Cardinals, I make no doubt, Ralph," he answered. "But I hold it is as needful to be fair in matters of religious controversy as in, let us say, a question of knightly deportment. The Greeks are schismatics, in sooth; yet the practise of their version of Christianity is as the breath of life to them. They like nothing better than a close dispute over some item of the Creed or mayhap the definition of a phrase that will help nobody nearer to Heaven by knowing."
"What is the chief difference between their belief and ours?" asked Hugh.