An ache he had not felt in many a day began to gnaw at Hugh's heart, but his mind was snatched back to the present by the splash of the anchor overside and the shouts of the shipmen. The fleet had come to rest in a cove on the Asiatic bank. Atop of a gentle slope which ascended from the beach stood the Imperial palace of Chalcedon, a resort of the Byzantine Emperors in summer or when they sought relaxation in hunting. In the distance were tilled fields with the corn unshocked. Hugh turned for one last look across the strait at the outline of Constantinople, dimming in the twilight. The city appeared to grow as the light diminished, casting a monstrous shadow athwart the world. CHAPTER XVII HOW HUGH WON KNIGHTHOOD For nine days the host tarried on the Asiatic shore, collecting stores of food in preparation for undertaking the siege of the city. A mile away on the opposite side of the strait lay the army of the Greeks, five times as numerous, gaily caparisoned, well-drilled, equipped with all the arms and engines of warfare. And behind this army were ten times as many more soldiers, if they were needed. By losses at Zara and the desertion of the malcontents the host had shrunk to some 20,000 fighting men. In Constantinople, alone, there were 200,000 men of arms-bearing age, and the populations of the suburbs, flowing in to take refuge behind the impregnable walls, added considerably to this total. In Adrianople, Messinopolis, Tchorlu, Salonika, Nicea and many another city there were hundreds of thousands more. The Crusaders were as a chip of wood beside an oak-tree in comparison to the Empire they had attacked. On the tenth day a Parliament was held after mass in the open fields by Scutari. It was attended by every knight and baron, fully armoured and horsed. Boniface, Dandolo and the Young Alexius sat their saddles in the centre of a horse-shoe of steel-clad men and chargers. A forest of lances ringed them round. The words of counsel were punctuated by the clatter of hoofs, the jingling of bits and the clank of shields on hauberks. Fierce-visaged, eager, the knights cried with one voice to be led to the attack. Alexius, sumptuously clad in silks and velvets, seemed ill at ease in such martial surroundings, but Dandolo and Boniface surveyed the glittering ranks with the exultant eyes of leaders who know themselves staunchly served. "Forward, lords!" shouted the host. "Let the lances be couched! Out swords!" Pennons and banners fluttered like the beating wings of birds of prey, and a storm of war-cries rose from the ranks. Boniface raised his hand in a sign for silence.