The grand departure of the crusaders from Venice had been fixed for June, 1202. At that time but a part of the leaders appeared. Some had taken ship from Bari, Genoa, and even the ports on the Northern Ocean, as served their convenience or as they were able to make better terms than with the Venetians. Of four thousand expected knights, but one thousand had arrived; of one hundred thousand men, less than sixty thousand; of the eighty-five thousand marks pledged for passage, but thirty-four thousand were in hand. Dandolo protested against this as breach of faith with him, and pointed to his fleet, waiting, manned and provisioned, in the harbor. He demanded the immediate payment of the entire sum. In vain had the crusaders sent what they could to the ducal palace—money, vessels of silver and gold, jewels, and securities on their lands. The doge declared, according to Robert de Clari, who was in this army, “If you do not pay, understand well that you will not move from this spot, nor will you find any one who will furnish you with meat and drink.” The crusading army thus found itself a crowd of starving prisoners on a fever-fraught island near Venice. In the heat of the summer many sickened and died; others managed to escape. Those who remained communicated with friends in France and induced a few more knights and nobles to join them. But with this assistance, and though the richest of them had stripped themselves of possessions until nothing but horses and armor were left, the debt was unpaid. Having gotten from them all that was possible, Dandolo assumed the rôle of friendship and proposed to forgive the remainder of their obligation upon condition of first receiving their help as soldiers in an expedition against Zara, which he had in contemplation. The city of Zara was Christian, the capital of Dalmatia, a province of Hungary, and just across the Adriatic from Venice. It was rapidly rising into the position of a competitor for the commerce of those waters, and thus excited the greed of the doge. But a richer prize than Zara was before the ambition of the Venetian ruler. From the beginning of his negotiations with the crusaders he doubtless contemplated the diversion of these forces, though collected in the name of religion, to the conquest of the Greek empire. Documents that have recently come to light make it clear that Dandolo had no purpose of assisting in war against Egypt and Palestine, but, in collusion with Boniface and Philip of Swabia, planned and executed one of the most marvellous schemes of perfidy that history portrays. As the basis of this severe judgment we must be content to give the dates of certain events. February 1, 1201, commissioners of the crusaders arrive in Venice, asking Dandolo’s assistance with the fleet. Autumn, 1201, Dandolo sends agents to Malek-Ahdel, of Egypt, proposing a settled peace with him.