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you shall hear how adventures befall as God wills: for in that city had lain during the night, Peter of Bracieux and Payen of Orldans, and all the men belonging to the land of Count Louis, at least a hundred very good knights and one hundred and forty mounted sergeants, and they were coming from the other side of the straits to join the host at Adrianople.
When they saw the host coming, they ran to their arms nght nimbly, for they thought we were the Greeks. So they armed themselves, and sent to know what people we were, when their messengers discovered that we were the host retreating after our discomfiture. So the messengers went back, and told them that the Emperor Baldwin was lost, and their lord Count Louis, of whose land and country they were, and of whose following.
Sadder news could they not have heard. There might you have seen many tears wept, and many hands wrung for sorrow and pity. And they went on, all an-ned as they were, till they came to where Geoffry, the Marshal of Champagne, was keeping guard in the rear, in very great anxiety and misease. For Johannizza, the King of Wallachia and Bulgaria, had come at the point of day before Adrianople with all his host, and found that we had departed, and so ridden after us till it was full day; and when he found us not, he was full of grief; and well was it that he found us not, for if he had found us we must all have been lost beyond recovery.
"Sir," said Peter of Bracieux and Payen of Orléans to Geoffry the Marshal, "what would you have us do? We will do whatever you wish." And he answered them: " You see how matters stand with us. You are fresh and unwearied, and your horses also; therefore do you keep guard in the rear, and I will go forward and hold in hand our people, who are greatly dismayed and in sore need of comfort." To this they consented right willingly. So they
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established the rearguard duly and efficiently, and as men who well knew how, for they were good knights and honourable.
THE HOST REA