Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/292

 274 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. of the army. So far he had been successful. But his own Expedition work was only half done. The expedition had been poIarif™di- diverted from Egypt. Venice had gained time, verted. gj-jj]^ jf |.]jg Venetians kept their part of the bar- gain, it was quite possible that the army should be landed in Egypt, and should be able to fight its way to sustenance and victory. If the army broke up, the Crusaders might reunite, and, with the aid of the Genoese and Pisans, the great rivals of the Venetians, still attack Egypt. Such a result would be the humiliation of Venice and the discomfiture of Dandolo. The great doge had long since provided against any such mis- hap. There is reason to believe that even before the expedi- tion left Venice he had determined to make use of the cru- sading host against Constantinople. A conspiracy had already been formed between Dandolo, Boniface, the commander-in- chief, and Philip of Swabia, which was to result in the great- est blow yet given to Christendom. In order to understand how this conspiracy had been formed, Events in Con- ^^^ must rccall briefly what had been passing in the Btantiuopie. imperial city. The reigning emperor was Alexis the Third. He had deposed his brother Isaac in 1195, and, af- ter putting out his eyes, had imprisoned him in the dungeons of the Diplokionion, or in the Tower of Anema. Isaac's son, Alexis, was allowed his liberty. At a time when Alexis the Third had apparently determined to kill young Alexis, his nephew and the lawful heir to the throne, the wife of the usurper warned Isaac of the contemplated crime. Isaac, ac- cording to the same authority, counselled his son to leave the city at once, and to escape to his sister, the wife of Philip of Swabia. Young Alexis, either disguised as a common sailor or hidden in a box carefully disguised,^ fled from Constanti- nople in a Pisan ship, and escaped the diligent search which was made for him by the imperial police. This was in the spring of 1201. Contemporary Western writers, who have been followed in this respect by all historians until the pres- 1 " Cliron. Novgorod." p. 93 : " Conductus est in navem ibique dolio tri- bus fundis instructo rcconditus." The story of Nicetas is diflferent.