Now may you hear of a strange deed of prowess; for the Doge of Venice,
who was an old man, and saw naught (seeing he was blind), stood, fully
armed, on the prow of his galley, and had the standard of St. Mark
before him; and he cried to his people to put him on land, or else that
he would do justice upon their bodies with his hands. And so they did,
for the galley was run aground, and they leapt therefrom, and bore the
standard of St. Mark before him on to the land.
And when the Venetians saw the standard of St. Mark on land, and the
galley of their lord touching ground before them, each held himself for
shamed, and they all gat to the land; and those in the transports leapt
forth, and landed; and those in the big ships got into barges, and made
for the shore, each and all as best they could. Then might you have
seen an assault, great and marvellous; and to this bears witness
Geoffry of Villehardouin, who makes this book, that more than forty
people told him for sooth that they saw the standard of St. Mark of
Venice at the top of one of the towers, and that no man knew who bore
it thither.
Now hear of a strange miracle: those who are within the city fly and
abandon the walls, and the Venetians enter in, each as fast and as best
he can, and seize twenty-five of the towers, and man them with their
people. And the Doge takes a boat, and sends messengers to the barons
of the host to tell them that he has taken twenty-five towers, and
that they may know for sooth that such towers cannot be retaken. The
barons are so overjoyed that they cannot believe their ears; and the
Venetians begin to send to the host in boats the horses and palfreys
they have taken.
When the Emperor Alexius saw that our people had thus entered into the
city, he sent his people against them in such numbers that our people
saw they would be unable to endure the onset. So they set fire to the
buildings between them and the Greeks; and the wind blew from our side,
and the fire began to wax so great that the Greeks could not see our
people who retired to the towers they had seized and conquered.