port, and the capture of the city was now a practicable enterprise.
It might be attacked by complete investment or be taken by storm. The first was out of the question, from the small number of the besiegers. But they held command of the sea. It was resolved, therefore, that the Crusaders should concentrate their forces at the northern angle of the city wall. It was impossible to blockade the city gates, or to keep the besieged from sorties. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, led the van with the Belgian chivalry. The main body, consisting of Flemings under Henry, brother of Baldwin, and French under the Counts of Blois and. St. Pol, was commanded by the Marquis of Montferrat. The engines which had been constructed for use against the walls of Jerusalem were taken from the ships and erected in position.
Mean time the Venetians were to assail the city from the ships near the centre of the line of wall protecting the shore of the Golden Horn.
As soon as a breach had been effected in the wall, a general assault by sea and land was delivered. That by land was begun with the usual desperate courage of the Crusaders, who found opposed to them, not the effeminate arms of the Greeks, but the sturdy axes of English and Danish guards and Pisan mercenaries. The assailants were repulsed in the utmost disorder. This was the chance which comes to him who knows how to use it. Had the emperor, who witnessed the contest from a window in the Blachern Palace, placed himself at the head of his Varangians, and led a sortie
