erusalem. She visited and loved her
kinsman. Theodora was the third victim of his amorous seduction; and her
shame was more public and scandalous than that of her predecessors. The
emperor still thirsted for revenge; and his subjects and allies of the
Syrian frontier were repeatedly pressed to seize the person, and put out
the eyes, of the fugitive. In Palestine he was no longer safe; but the
tender Theodora revealed his danger, and accompanied his flight. The
queen of Jerusalem was exposed to the East, his obsequious concubine;
and two illegitimate children were the living monuments of her weakness.
Damascus was his first refuge; and, in the characters of the great
Noureddin and his servant Saladin, the superstitious Greek might learn
to revere the virtues of the Mussulmans. As the friend of Noureddin he
visited, most probably, Bagdad, and the courts of Persia; and, after
a long circuit round the Caspian Sea and the mountains of Georgia, he
finally settled among the Turks of Asia Minor, the hereditary enemies
of his country. The sultan of Colonia afforded a hospitable retreat to
Andronicus, his mistress, and his band of outlaws: the debt of gratitude
was paid by frequent inroads in the Roman province of Trebizond; and
he seldom returned without an ample harvest of spoil and of Christian
captives. In the story of his adventures, he was fond of comparing
himself to David, who escaped, by a long exile, the snares of the
wicked. But the royal prophet (he presumed to add) was content to lurk
on the borders of Judaea, to slay an Amalekite, and to threaten, in his
miserable state, the life of the avaricious Nabal. The excursions of the
Comnenian prince had a wider range; and he had spread over the Eastern
world the glory of his name and religion. By a sentence of the Greek
church, the licentious rover had been separated from the faithful;
but even this excommunication may prove, that he never abjured the
profession of Christianity.

His vigilance had eluded or repelled the open and secret persecution
of the emperor; but he was at length insnared by the captivity of his
female companion. The governor of Trebizond succeeded in his attempt
to surprise the person of Theodora: the queen of Jerusalem and her two
children were sent to Constantinople, and their loss imbittered the
tedious solitude of banishment. The fugitive implored and obtained a
final pardon, with leave to throw himself at the feet of his sovereign,
who was satisf