Langton stood firmly by the cause which he had
taken up.

PART II.

While Innocent was thus carrying things with a high hand among the
Christians of the West, he could not but feel distress about the state
of affairs in the East. There, countries which had once been Christian,
and among them the Holy Land, where the Saviour had lived and died, had
fallen into the hands of unbelievers, and all the efforts which had been
made to recover them had hitherto been vain. The pope's mind was set on
a new crusade, and in order to raise money for it he gave much out of
his own purse, stinted himself as to his manner of living, obliged the
cardinals and others around him to do the like, and caused collections
to be gathered throughout Western Christendom. Eloquent preachers were
sent about to stir people up to the great work, and the chief beginning
was made at a place called Ecry, in the north of France. It so happened
that the most famous of the preachers, whose name was Fulk, arrived
there just as a number of nobles and knights were met for a tournament
(which was the name given to the fights of knights on horseback, which
were regarded as sport, but very often ended in sad earnest). Fulk, by
the power of his speech, persuaded most of these gallant knights at Ecry
to take the cross; and, as the number of Crusaders grew, some of them
were sent to Venice, to provide means for their being carried by sea to
Egypt, which was the country in which it was thought that the Mahometans
might be attacked with the best hope of success.

When these envoys reached Venice, which was then the chief trading city
of Europe, they found the Venetians very willing to supply what they
wanted. It was agreed that for a certain sum of money the Venetians
should prepare ships and provisions for the number of Crusaders which
was expected; and they did so accordingly. But when the Crusaders came,
it was found that their numbers fell short of what had been reckoned on;
for many had chosen other ways of going to the East; and, as the
Venetians would take nothing less than the sum which they had bargained
for, the Crusaders, with their lessened numbers, found themselves unable
to pay. In this difficulty, the Venetians proposed that, instead of the
money which could not be raised, the Crusaders should give them their
help against the city of Zara, in Dalmatia, with which Venice had a
quarrel. The Crusaders were very unwilling to do this; because the pope,