Let us then go to them, and fall at their feet, and cry
to them for mercy, and for God's sake to have compas-
29
sion upon themselves and upon us, and not to dishonour themselves, and
ravish from us the deliverance of the land overseass
Thus did the council decide; and they went, all together, to a valley
where those of the other part were holding their parliament; and they
took with them the son of the Emperor of Constantinople, and all the
bishops and all the abbots of the host. And when they had come to the
place they dismounted and went forward, and the barons fell at the
feet of those of the other part, greatly weeping, and said they would
not stir till those of the other part had promised not to depart from
them.
And when those of the other part saw this, they were filled with very
great compassion; and they wept very bitterly at seeing their lords,
and their kinsmen, and their friends, thus lying at their feet. So
they said they would consult together, and drew somewhat apart, and
there communed. And the sum of their communing was this: that they
would remain with the host till Michaelmas, on condition that the
other part would swear, loyally, on holy relics, that from that day
and thenceforward, at whatever hour they might be summoned to do so,
they would in all good faith, and without guile, within fifteen days,
furnish ships wherein the non-contents might betake themselves to
Syria.
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