d on the rocks of Cyprus, when
their crews were robbed by the king there. This roused the
Lion-Hearted, who headed a landing party which soon brought King
Comnenus to his senses. Vinesauf wrote to say that when Comnenus sued
for peace Richard was mounted on a splendid Spanish war-horse and
dressed in a red silk tunic embroidered with gold. Red seems to have
been a favourite English war colour from very early times. The red St.
George's Cross on a white field was flown from the masthead by the
commander-in-chief of the fleet, just as it is today. On another flag
always used aboard ship three British lions were displayed.

After putting Comnenus into silver chains and shutting him up in a
castle Richard set two governors over Cyprus, which thus became the
first Eastern possession of the British Crown. Seven centuries later
it again came into British hands, this time to stay. Richard then
sailed for the siege of Acre in Palestine. But on the way he met a
Turkish ship of such enormous size that she simply took Vinesauf's
breath away. No one thought that any ship so big had ever been built
before, "unless it might be Noah's Ark", Richard had a hundred galleys.
The Turkish ship was quite alone; but she was a tough nut to crack, for
all that. She was said to have had fifteen hundred men aboard, which
might be true, as soldiers being rushed over for the defence of Acre
were probably packed like herrings in a barrel. As this was the first
English sea fight in the Crusades, and the first in which a King of all
England fought, the date should be set down: the 7th of June, 1191.

The Turk was a very stoutly built vessel, high out of the water and
with three tall masts, each provided with a fighting top from which
stones and jars of Greek fire could be hurled down on the galleys. She
also had "two hundred most deadly serpents, prepared for killing
Christians." Altogether, she seems to have been about as devilish a
craft as even Germans could invent. As she showed no colours Richard
hailed her, when she said she was a French ship bound for Acre. But as
no one on board could speak French he sent a galley to test her. As
soon as the Englishmen went near enough the Turks threw Greek fire on
them. Then Richard called out: "Follow me and take her! If she
escapes you lose my love for ever. If you take her, all that is in her
will be yours." But when the galleys swarmed round her she beat them
off with deadly showers of