guest, but the most eloquent still.  There had been no nods from Him since the great day of Fontevrault; but Richard watched Him daily and held himself bound to be His footboy.  See these desperate shifts of the great-hearted man!  Here were his two other guests:  little Fulke, who claimed everything, and still Jehane, who claimed nothing; and outside the door stood Berengere, crisping and uncrisping her small hands.  To serve Christ he had married the Queen; to serve the Queen he had put away Jehane; to honour Jehane (who had given him her honour) he had abjured the Queen.  Now lastly, he prayed Christ to save him Fulke, his first and only son.  ’My Saviour Christ,’ he prayed on his last night at Acre, ’let Thine honour be the first end of this adventure.  But if honour come to Thee, my Lord, through me, let honour stay with me and my son through Thee.  I cannot think I do amiss to ask so much.  One other thing I ask before I go out.  Watch over these treasures of mine that I leave in pawn, for I know very well that I shall get no more of them.’  Then he kissed the mother and the child, comforting them, and went out, not trusting himself to look back at the house.

He had made the defences of Acre as good as he knew, which was very good indeed.  He had bettered the harbour; he left ships in it, established a post between it and Beyrout, between Beyrout and Cyprus.  He sent Guy of Lusignan to be his regent in that island, Emperor if he chose.  He left Abbot Milo to comfort Jehane, the Viscount of Beziers to rule the town and garrison.  Shriven, fortified with the Sacrament, he spent his last night in Acre on the 21st of August.  Next morning, as soon as it was day, he led his army out on its march to Jerusalem.

Joppa was his immediate object, to which place a road ran between the mountains and the sea, never far from either.  He had little or no transport, nor could expect food by the way, for Saladin had seen to that.  The ships had to work down level with him, with reserves of men and stores; and even so the thing had an ugly look.  The mountains of Ephraim, not very lofty, were covered with a thick growth of holm-oak:  excellent cover, wherein, as he knew quite well, the Saracens could move as he moved, choose their time, and attack him on front, rear, or left flank, wherever chance offered.  It was a journey of peril, harassing, slow, and without glory.

For six weeks he led and held a running battle, wherein the powers of earth and air, the powers of Mahomet, and dark forces within his own lines all strove against him.  He met them alone, with a blank face, eyes bare, teeth hard-set.  Whatever provocation was offered from without or within, he would not attack, nor let his friends attack, until the enemy was in his hand.  You, who know what longanimity may be and how hard a thing to come at, may admire him for this.