334 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. fulfil the agreement made between you and us. If you fulfil it, well ; if not, take note that the barons will recognize you neither as lord nor as friend, but they will consider them- selves free to take that which belongs to them in any way in which they can get it. They give you notice that they will do you no harm till they have defied you. They will not be- tray you ; it is not the custom in their country so to do. You have heard what we have said, and you will take counsel upon the matter as you like." The noise which this public challenge made in the city was crreat, as no doubt Boniface and Dandolo intended that it should be. The messengers returned to the camp, tliinking themselves fortunate, as Yillehardouin admits, that they had escaped with their lives. It is hardly necessary for him to add that the Greeks took this defiance as a great insult, and remarked that no one had hitherto dared to challenge the Emperor of Constantinople in his own palace. There was now open hostility betw^een the inhabitants and the invaders, and each side prepared to oppose Open hostili- rrT r- ^ i • i ties com- the othcr. ihe Greeks made a night attempt to HICDCG. burn the Venetian fleet. They prepared seventeen boats, set fire to the wood and various combustibles with which they had been loaded, and at midnight on ISTew Year's Day, when a strong southerly wind was blowing, turned them adrift. The attempt, however, failed. A few persons were injured, and a Fisan merchantman was burned, with her cargo ; but the Venetians with their boat-hooks managed to push the burning ships away from them to the mouth of the harbor, where the strong current which is always running soon carried them out of the way of doing harm. A week after the Greeks made a sortie with their cavalry, but were repulsed. Within the city the confusion increased daily. The people Revolution in ^^re couviuced that they had nothing to hope the city. from either emperor. They had at length awak- ened to a sense of danger. The question was no longer one of a mere change of rulers, but one of fulfilling a contract to which they were no party, of paying a band of robbers who
