Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/167

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The Comnenans.
145

remain long in Antioch, however, lest Manuel should order his arrest. He fled to Jerusalem, and finding shelter there, showed his gratitude by falling in love with Theodora, the widow of Baldwin III., who returned his passion with equal ardour. She was thus the third princess who fell a victim to this Byzantine Don Giovanni. And when Manuel offered large rewards to any Syrian noble who should arrest Andronicus and put out his eyes, it was Theodora who warned him of the danger, and consented to take refuge with him among the Turks. A very curious chapter might be written on the renegades of the Eastern empire as well as on those of Spain. The Mohammedan service, indeed, has always attracted a certain class of adventurer. Its prizes, great and splendid, have always been open to the ready eye, the strong hand, and the quick brain; its religion is tolerant in practice if not in theory; its customs offer an apparent freedom from those bonds of morality which fetter and fatigue the piratic mind. As for Andronicus, he came of a family of renegades. With Theodora he wandered about for a time in Mesopotamia and Iberia, till he had collected a small army of refugees and Turkish mercenaries, with which, because every free and independent soldier must have money, he began to harass the frontier and capture live stock among the Christians for the slave market. He held strong forts among the mountains, to which he would retire one after the other, eluding pursuit like another Rob Roy. Nor was it until Theodora was taken prisoner that he opened negotiations with the emperor. He succeeded in gaining permission to be