At Anchialus
in Thrace, an intrepid friend supplied him with horses and money: he
passed the river, traversed with speed the desert of Moldavia and the
Carpathian hills, and had almost reached the town of Halicz, in the
Polish Russia, when he was intercepted by a party of Walachians, who
resolved to convey their important captive to Constantinople. His
presence of mind again extricated him from danger. Under the pretence of
sickness, he dismounted in the night, and was allowed to step aside from
the troop: he planted in the ground his long staff, clothed it with his
cap and upper garment; and, stealing into the wood, left a phantom to
amuse, for some time, the eyes of the Walachians. From Halicz he was
honorably conducted to Kiow, the residence of the great duke: the
subtle Greek soon obtained the esteem and confidence of Ieroslaus; his
character could assume the manners of every climate; and the Barbarians
applauded his strength and courage in the chase of the elks and bears
of the forest. In this northern region he deserved the forgiveness
of Manuel, who solicited the Russian prince to join his arms in the
invasion of Hungary. The influence of Andronicus achieved this important
service: his private treaty was signed with a promise of fidelity on one
side, and of oblivion on the other; and he marched, at the head of the
Russian cavalry, from the Borysthenes to the Danube. In his resentment
Manuel had ever sympathized with the martial and dissolute character of
his cousin; and his free pardon was sealed in the assault of Zemlin, in
which he was second, and second only, to the valor of the emperor.

No sooner was the exile restored to freedom and his country, than his
ambition revived, at first to his own, and at length to the public,
misfortune. A daughter of Manuel was a feeble bar to the succession of
the more deserving males of the Comnenian blood; her future marriage
with the prince of Hungary was repugnant to the hopes or prejudices of
the princes and nobles. But when an oath of allegiance was required to
the presumptive heir, Andronicus alone asserted the honor of the Roman
name, declined the unlawful engagement, and boldly protested against the
adoption of a stranger. His patriotism was offensive to the emperor, but
he spoke the sentiments of the people, and was removed from the royal
presence by an honorable banishment, a second command of the Cilician
frontier, with the absolute disposal of the revenues of Cypru