The Chronicle of Robert of Clari win also be found in Hopf's
Chroniques Gr?co-romanes in?dites ou peu connues, etc., pp. 1-85,
Berlin, 1873.]
62
When the knights see this, who are in the transports, they land, and
raise their ladders against the wall, and scale the top of the wall by
main force, and so take four of the towers. And all begin to leap out
of the ships and transports and galleys, helter-skelter, each as best
he can; and they break in some three of the gates and enter in; and
they draw the horses out of the transports; and the knights mount and
ride straight to the quarters of the Emperor Mourzuphles. He had his
battalions arrayed before his tents, and when his men see the mounted
knights coming, they lose heart and fly; and so goes the emperor
flying through the streets to the castle of Bucoleon.
Then might you have seen the Greeks beaten down; and horses and
palfreys captured, and mules, and other booty. Of killed and wounded
there was neither end nor measure. A great part of the Greek lords had
fled towards the gate of
63
Blachernae. And vesper-time was already past, and those of the host
were wear of the battle and of the slaying,. And they began to
assemble in a great open space that was in Constantinople, and decided
that they would take up their quarters near the walls and towers they
had captured. Never had they thought that in a whole month they should
be able to take the city, with its great churches, and great palaces,
and the people that were in it.
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