"Is he human?" asked Matteo with a shiver.
"Truly I know not," answered Hugh. "I could hope he is not, for in sooth we are in a sad plight. The day goes badly, after all."
CHAPTER XIX
HOW THE FALSE ALEXIUS FLED
The fate of the host hung poised in the balance for several hours that afternoon whilst the sun sank slowly in the west. When Hugh and Matteo reached the camp the leaders were in desperate straits to know what to do to avert being submerged by the apparently endless armies of enemies who continued to pour out of the gates in the land walls. Thousands of armoured horsemen, tens of thousands of steel-clad footmen and scores of thousands of light-armed skirmishers, archers and slingers were forming their array in the plains north of the Gate of St. Romanus. It was the supreme effort of the Emperor—he whom the Crusaders called the False Alexius to distinguish him from the youth whose cause they had espoused. Stung by the menace of the Venetians' success on the Golden Horn walls, he had determined to put his fortune to the touch in one smashing blow at the army of the Crusaders, without whose aid, he knew, the Venetians would be helpless.
His strategy met with instant success. Dandolo was obliged to relinquish his grip on the Golden Horn walls and throw every man who could be spared from the crews of the fleet into the camp of the Crusaders. The wise old Doge was quick to understand that this was no time for half-measures. He was loath to abandon the fruits of the day's fighting, but he knew they would be useless to him if his allies were crushed. And what had been won that day, he reasoned, might be won another day, providing the enemy was thwarted in this new attack. So the Venetians moved to the aid of the Crusaders fast on the heels of the messengers who announced their coming. Hugh and Matteo had scarce delivered their assurances of succour when the galleys were spied rowing up the Golden Horn.
Upon Dandolo's landing, he found the Crusaders already heartened by the news of the successes he had won. They had reaped nothing but losses by their efforts, and it encouraged them to know that the Venetians had disproved the traditional impregnability of those tremendous walls.
"It goeth sore against our pride, Lord Doge, that we have had to call upon you so and compel you to abandon that which you have won right hardily," Boniface greeted him. "But you may see before you the powers that move against us."
Dandolo's eyes were not equal to spanning the distance which separated the camp from the Greek army, but his uncanny knack of envisaging a situation which he could not see permitted him to gauge the relative facts. One division of the Crusaders, commanded by the Lord Henry, brother of Count Baldwin of Flanders, were mounting guard over the machines erected by the host in front of the Gate of Blachernae. The remaining six battalions were formed in front of the palisades of the camp—the archers and cross-bowmen in front; behind them the mounted knights and sergeants; and in the rear of all the sergeants and squires on foot. One division of 800 knights who had lost their horses fought likewise afoot, being held in reserve as a force to be used to close any gap or seize upon an unlooked-for advantage.
The Doge conned over the arrangements in silence, and then asked for the disposition of the Greeks.