After they had lost the harbour of Limasol, from that hasty dark hour of setting out, the fleet sailed (it seemed) under new stars and encountered a new strange air.  All night they toiled at the oars; and in the morning, very early, every eye was turned to the fired East, where, in the sea-haze, lay the sacred places clothed (like the Sacrament) in that gauzy veil.  First of them Trenchemer steered, the King’s red galley, in whose prow, stiff and hieratic as a figurehead, was the King himself, watching for a sign.  The great ships rolled and plunged, the tide came racing by them, blue-green water lipped with foam, carrying upon it unknown weeds, golden fruit floating, wreckage unfamiliar, a dead fish scarlet-rayed, a basket strangely wrought—­drifting heralds of a country of dreams.  About noon, when mass had been said upon his galley, King Richard was seen to throw up his arms and stretch them wide; the shout followed the sign—­’Terra Sancta!  Terra Sancta!’ they heard him cry.  Voice after voice, tongue after tongue, took up the word and lifted it from ship to ship.  All fell upon their knees, save the rowers.  A dim coast, veiled in violet, lifted before their eyes—­mountain ranges, great hollows, clouded places, so far and silent, so mysteriously wrapt, full of awe, no one could speak, no one had thought to speak, but must look and search and wonder.  A quick flight of shore birds, flashing creatures that twittered as they swept by, broke the spell.  This then was a land where living things abode; it was not only of the sacred dead.  They drew nearer, their hearts comforted.

They saw Margat, a lonely tower high on a split rock; they saw Tortosa, with a haven in the sea; Tripolis, a very white city; Neplyn.  Botron they saw, with a great terraced castle; afterwards Beyrout, cedars about its skirt.  Mountains rose up nearer to the sound of the surf; they saw Lebanon capped with cloud-wreaths, then snowy Hermon gleaming in the sun.  They saw Mount Tabor with a grey head, and two mountains like spires which stood separate and apart.  Tyre they passed, and Sidon, rich cities set in the sand, then Scandalion; at length after a long night of watching a soft hill showed, covered with verdure and glossy dark woods, Carmel, shaped like a woman’s breast.  Making this hallowed mount, in the plain beyond they saw Acre, many-towered; and all about it the tents of the Christian hosts, and before it in the blue waters of the bay ships riding at anchor, more numerous than the sea-birds that haunt Monte Gibello or swim sentinel about its base.  Trumpets from the shore answered to their trumpets; they heard a wild tattoo of drums within the walls.  On even keels in the motionless tide the ships took up their moorings; and King Richard, throwing the end of his cloak over his shoulder, jumped off the gunwale of Trenchemer, and waded breast-deep to shore.  He was the first of his realm to touch this storied Syrian earth.

Now for affairs.  The meeting of the Kings was cordial, or seemed so.  King Philip came out of his pavilion to meet his royal brother, and Richard, kissing him, asked him how he did.  ‘Very vilely, Richard,’ said the young man.  ’I think there is a sword in my head.  The glaring sun flattens me by day, and all night I shiver.’