His strategy met with instant success. Dandolo was obliged to relinquish his grip on the Golden Horn walls and throw every man who could be spared from the crews of the fleet into the camp of the Crusaders. The wise old Doge was quick to understand that this was no time for half-measures. He was loath to abandon the fruits of the day's fighting, but he knew they would be useless to him if his allies were crushed. And what had been won that day, he reasoned, might be won another day, providing the enemy was thwarted in this new attack. So the Venetians moved to the aid of the Crusaders fast on the heels of the messengers who announced their coming. Hugh and Matteo had scarce delivered their assurances of succour when the galleys were spied rowing up the Golden Horn. Upon Dandolo's landing, he found the Crusaders already heartened by the news of the successes he had won. They had reaped nothing but losses by their efforts, and it encouraged them to know that the Venetians had disproved the traditional impregnability of those tremendous walls. "It goeth sore against our pride, Lord Doge, that we have had to call upon you so and compel you to abandon that which you have won right hardily," Boniface greeted him. "But you may see before you the powers that move against us." Dandolo's eyes were not equal to spanning the distance which separated the camp from the Greek army, but his uncanny knack of envisaging a situation which he could not see permitted him to gauge the relative facts. One division of the Crusaders, commanded by the Lord Henry, brother of Count Baldwin of Flanders, were mounting guard over the machines erected by the host in front of the Gate of Blachernae. The remaining six battalions were formed in front of the palisades of the camp--the archers and cross-bowmen in front; behind them the mounted knights and sergeants; and in the rear of all the sergeants and squires on foot. One division of 800 knights who had lost their horses fought likewise afoot, being held in reserve as a force to be used to close any gap or seize upon an unlooked-for advantage. The Doge conned over the arrangements in silence, and then asked for the disposition of the Greeks. "There are some forty divisions of them, Lord Doge," returned Boniface. "And this is without counting a foison of their people who have but now issued forth from the Gate of Blachernae and are assailing the guards upon our machines." "Do they prevail against the Lord Henry?" "Not so, by God's grace. We hold our own. An we made a sharp assault upon them I think we might do them great hurt."