Then at last the standard of the cross
was brought forth, with the great standards of France and of Guienne--
the banner of Saint George and the Dragon, which Eleanor was to hand
down to her sons and sons' sons, kings of England, for generations; and
the choir began to sing "Vexilla regis prodeunt" ("The standards of the
king go forth"). So all that great and noble host went out in state,
chanting the lofty hymn that rang with tones of victory, while among
cypress groves on far Asian hillsides the ravens waited for the coming
feast of Christian flesh, and the circling kite scanned the broad earth
and dancing water for the living things that were to feed him full of
death.
At last the worst of the fearful march was over, and the Crusaders lay
before Constantinople, travel-stained, half-starved and wan, but at
rest. The great open space of undulating ground before the wall that
joined the Golden Horn with the Sea of Marmara was their camping-
ground, and countless tents were pitched in uneven lines as far as one
could see. The King, and Queen Eleanor, and a few of the greater nobles
had entered the city and were lodged in its palaces about the Emperor's
gardens, but all the rest remained without. For the German hosts had
been first to reach the Bosphorus, and where they had passed they had
left a broad track of dust and ashes and a great terror upon all living
things. Even in Constantinople itself, where the Emperor had received
them as guests, they had robbed and ravaged and burned as if they had
been in an enemy's country; and when at last he had persuaded them to
cross over to Asia, they had left the great city half sacked behind
them, so that the Emperor's heart was resentfully hardened against
every man who bore the cross.
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