THE FRENCH SAIL TO ACRE

I1n the month of March, 1191, Philip left Sicily and sailed to Acre. His appearance was regarded as a divine blessing; in the moment of elation the attacks were renewed; but orders were soon given for suspending them till the arrival of Richard, and it is more rational to think that the improbability of success without him was Philip’s motive, and not the specious reason that as the cause was common, the victory should be common also. Before his departure from Sicily, Richard avowed that he would lead a life of virtue, and with all humility submitted his back to the scourges of his clergy. He was detained for a short time on account of the expected arrival of his mother Eleanor with the princess Berengaria of Navarre, to whom he had been affianced, long before his treaty with Philip gave him liberty of marriage.

2About a fortnight after the departure of his rival, the English monarch set sail. In the absence of numerical statements concerning the strength of his army, we can conjecture that it was formidable from the fact that his soldiers, horses, and stores filled two hundred ships of various sizes. A storm dispersed his fleet, and he heard at Rhodes that two of his vessels had been stranded on the shores of Cyprus, and that the people of the island had plundered and imprisoned such of the crews as had survived shipwreck. The vessel which carried the dowager queen of Sicily had been refused entrance into port.

3The English therefore landed on the shores of Cyprus; the archers as usual preceded to clear the way; their barbed arrows fell like showers of rain on the meadows, and supported by the heavily armed soldiers they drove the emperor and his Greeks into the interior of the island. The ruler of Cyprus was of the race of Comnenus, but he had changed his government into a kingdom. Isaac was taken; the king of England became lord of Cyprus; he taxed the people to the dreadful amount of the half of their movables, and then accorded to them the rights they had enjoyed under the dominion of the Byzantine emperors.

4Richard reposed himself from the toil of conquest by celebrating his marriage with Berengaria. But in a few weeks he roused himself to arms. His fleet left Cyprus; a large troop ship[61] of Saladin crossed his way; the light galleys surrounded and attacked her, but the lofty sides of the Turk could not be mounted. “I will crucify all my soldiers if she should escape,” exclaimed Richard. His men, more in dread of their sovereign’s wrath than the swords of the foe, impelled the sharp beaks of their vessels against the enemy; some of the soldiers dived into the sea, and seized the rudder; and others came to close combat with the Saracens. In order to make the capture an unprofitable one, the emir commanded his troops to cut through the sides of their ship till the waters should rush in. They then leaped on the decks of the English galleys. But the sanguinary and ungenerous Richard killed or cast overboard his defenceless enemies, or, with an avarice equally detestable, saved the commanders for the sake of their ransom.

5Shouts of warm and gratulatory acclamations saluted the English on their arrival at Acre. The brilliant scene before them was calculated to excite all the animating feelings of warriors. The martial youth of Europe were assembled on the plain in all the pride and pomp of chivalry. The splendid tents, the gorgeous ensigns, the glittering weapons, the armorial cognisances, displayed the varieties of individual fancy and national peculiarities. On the eminences in the distance the thick embattled squadrons of the sultan were encamped. The mameluke Tatar was armed with his bow; the people of the higher Egypt with their flails and scourges; and the Bedouins with their spears and small round shields. The brazen drum sounded the note of war; and the black banner of Saladin was raised in proud defiance of the crimson standard of the cross.