oth fear and honor in the emperor's heart, the large sum
offered him outweighed the opposition of the lords of the Diet, and he
resolved to seize the prisoner again and profit by the French king's
golden bribe.

Fortunately for Richard, the perfidious emperor allowed the secret of
his design to get adrift; one of the hostages left in his hands heard of
it and found means to warn the king. Richard, at this tidings, stayed
not for storm, but at once took passage in the galliot of a Norman
trader named Alain Franchemer, narrowly escaping the men-at-arms sent to
take him prisoner. Not many days afterwards he landed at the English
port of Sandwich, once more a free man and a king.

What followed in Richard's life we design not to tell, other than the
story of his life's ending with its romantic incidents. The liberated
king had not been long on his native soil before he succeeded in
securing Normandy against the invading French, building on its borders a
powerful fortress, which he called his "Saucy Castle," and the ruins of
whose sturdy walls still remain. Philip was wrathful when he saw its
ramparts growing.

"I will take it were its walls of iron," he declared.

"I would hold it were the walls of butter," Richard defiantly replied.

It was church land, and the archbishop placed Normandy under an
interdict. Richard laughed at his wrath, and persuaded the pope to
withdraw the curse. A "rain of blood" fell, which scared his courtiers,
but Richard laughed at it as he had at the bishop's wrath.

"Had an angel from heaven bid him abandon his work, he would have
answered with a curse," says one writer.

"How pretty a child is mine, this child of but a year old!" said
Richard, gladly, as he saw the walls proudly rise.

[Illustration: STATUE OF RICHARD COEUR DE LION.]

He needed money to finish it. His kingdom had been drained to pay his
ransom. But a rumor reached him that a treasure had been found at
Limousin,--twelve knights of gold seated round a golden table, said the
story. Richard claimed it. The lord of Limoges refused to surrender it.
Richard assailed his castle. It was stubbornly defended. In savage wrath
he swore he would hang every soul within its walls.

There was an old song which said that an arrow would be made in Limoges
by which King Richard would die. The song proved a true prediction. One
night, as the king surveyed the walls, a young soldier, Bertrand de
Gourdon by name, drew an arrow to its head, a