The entreaties would have been in vain if the leader of the party had not at length threatened to hang the offender. A few minutes later the fugitives had passed out of the city, and fell on their knees to thank God for his protection in having permitted them to escape with their lives. Then they set out on their weary way to Silivria. The road was covered with fellow-sufferers. Before them was the patriarch himself, " without bag or money, or stick or shoes, with but one coat," says Nicetas, "like a true apostle, or rather like a true follower of Jesus Christ, in that he was seated on an ass, with the difference that instead of entering the new Sion in triumph he was leaving it."

A large part of the booty had been collected in the three Division of churches designated for that purpose. The mar- the spoil itself tells us that much was stolen which never came into the general mass. The stores which had been collected were, however, divided in accordance with the compact which had been made before the capture. The Venetians and the Crusaders each took half. Out of the moiety belonging to the army there was paid the fifty thousand silver marks due to the Venetians. Two foot-sergeants received as much as one horse-sergeant, and two of the latter sergeants received as much as a knight. Exclusive of what was stolen and of what was paid to the Venetians, there were distributed among the army 400,000 marks, or £800,000, and suits of armor.

Distributed among the Crusaders

The total amount distributed among the Crusaders and Venetians shows that the wealth of Constantinople had not been exaggerated. £S00,000 was given to the Crusaders, a like suin to the Venetians, with the £100,000 due to them. These sums had been collected in hard cash from a city where the inhabitants were hostile, and where they had in their wells and cisterns an easy means of hiding their treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones—a means traditionally well known in the East—and in a city half of which had been recently burned in three great fires. As we have seen, abundance of booty was taken possession of by the troops which never went into the general mass. Sismondi estimates that the wealth in specie and movable property before the capture was not less than twenty-four million pounds sterling.

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