that was to lead uncounted thousands to death, and almost to widow
Europe. In Genoa the war was preached furiously and with success by the
Bishops of Gratz and Arles in S. Siro. An army of enthusiasts, monks,
beggars, soldiers, adventurers, and thieves, moved partly by the love of
Christ, partly by love of gain, gathered in Genoa. With them was
Godfrey. They sailed in 1097: they besieged Antioch and took it. Content
it might seem with this success, or fearful in that stony place of
venturing too far from the sea, the Genoese returned, not empty. For on
the way back, storm-bound perhaps in Myra, they sacked a Greek
monastery there, carrying off for their city the dust of St. John
Baptist, which to-day is still in their keeping.

Was it the hope of loot that caused Genoa in 1099 to send even a larger
company to Judaea under the great Guglielmo Embriaco, whose tower to-day
is all that is left of what must once have been a city of towers? Who
knows? He landed with his Genoese at Joppa, burnt his ships as Caesar
did, though doubtless he thought not of it, and marching on Jerusalem
found the Christians still unsuccessful and the Tomb of Christ, as now,
ringed by pagan spears. But the Genoese were not to be denied. If the
valour of Europe was of no avail, the contrivance of the sea, the
cunning of Genoa must bring down Saladin. So they set to work and made a
tower of scaffolding with ropes, with timbers, with spars saved from
their ships. When this was ready, slowly, not without difficulty, surely
not without joy, they hauled and heaved and drove it over the burning
dust, the immense wilderness of stones and refuse that surrounded
Jerusalem. Then they swarmed up with songs, with shouting, and leapt on
to the walls, and over the ramparts into the Holy City, covered with
blood, filled with the fury of battle, wounded, dying, mad with hatred,
to the Tomb of Jesus, the empty sepulchre of God.