celebrated Conrad, Marquis of Tyre. CHAPTER II. "I'll laugh and I'll sing though my heart may bleed, And join in the festive train, And if I survive it I'll mount my steed And off to the wars again." In the spring of the year 1202, the crusaders being joined by numbers from Italy and Germany, arrived at Venice. "On the Sunday before they were ready for embarkation, a great multitude assembled in the place of St. Mark. It was a high festival, and there were present the people of the land, and most of the barons and pilgrims. Before high mass began, the Doge of Venice, who was named Henry Dandolo, mounted the pulpit, and spoke to the people, and said to them, 'Signors, there have joined themselves to you the best nation in the world, and for the greatest business that ever men undertook; and I am an old man and a feeble and should be thinking of rest, and am frail and suffering of body. But I see that no one can order and marshal you like I who am your lord. If you choose to grant to me to take the sign of the cross, that I may guard you and instruct you, and that my son may remain in my place to guard the land, I will go live or die with you and the pilgrims.' And when they heard him they all cried out with one voice, 'We beg you in God's name to grant it, and to do it, and to come with us.' Then great pity took possession of the men of the land, and of the pilgrims, and they shed many tears to think that this valiant man had such great cause to remain, for he was an old man and had beautiful eyes in his head, but saw not with them, having lost his sight through a wound on the crown; exceeding great of heart was he. So he descended from the pulpit and walked straight to the altar, and threw himself upon his knees, pitifully weeping; and they sewed the cross on a large cape of cotton, because he wished the people to see it. And the Venetians began to take the cross in large numbers and in great plenty on that day, until which very few had taken the cross. Our pilgrims were moved with exceeding joy even to overflowing as regarded this new crusader, on account of the sense and the prowess that were his. Thus the doge took the cross as you have heard." But by a singular circumstance the expedition was diverted from its original design. Isaac Angelus, the vicious and tyrannical Emperor of Constantinople, had been deposed by his subjects, deprived of his eyesight, and cast into prison. His brother Alexius was invested with the purple, and rejecting the name of Angelus, assumed the royal appellation of the Comnenian race. Young Alexius, the son of Isaac, was at this time twelve years of age. Escaping from the guards of his uncle in the disguise of a common sailor, he found a refuge in the island of Sicily. Thence he set off for Germany, having accepted an invitation to reside with his sister Irene, wife of Philip of Suabia. Passing through Italy, he found the flower of western chivalry assembled