When they saw the host coming, they ran to their arms nght nimbly, for
they thought we were the Greeks. So they armed themselves, and sent to
know what people we were, when their messengers discovered that we
were the host retreating after our discomfiture. So the messengers
went back, and told them that the Emperor Baldwin was lost, and their
lord Count Louis, of whose land and country they were, and of whose
following.
Sadder news could they not have heard. There might you have seen many
tears wept, and many hands wrung for sorrow and pity. And they went
on, all an-ned as they were, till they came to where Geoffry, the
Marshal of Champagne, was keeping guard in the rear, in very great
anxiety and misease. For Johannizza, the King of Wallachia and
Bulgaria, had come at the point of day before Adrianople with all his
host, and found that we had departed, and so ridden after us till it
was full day; and when he found us not, he was full of grief; and well
was it that he found us not, for if he had found us we must all have
been lost beyond recovery.
"Sir," said Peter of Bracieux and Payen of Orl?ans to Geoffry the
Marshal, "what would you have us do? We will do whatever you wish."
And he answered them: " You see how matters stand with us. You are
fresh and unwearied, and your horses also; therefore do you keep guard
in the rear, and I will go forward and hold in hand our people, who
are greatly dismayed and in sore need of comfort.
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