On this every highway in the country became alive, the emirs quitted
their towns, and began to fly with their families, their goods, and
chattels, and hope rose high in the Christian camp. This honor was
reserved for the Emperor; that which no other Frankish sword could
achieve he had done by the mere shadow of his approach; he had forced
from Saladin a confession of inferiority. But he was not destined to
see the realization of his endeavors here, any more than in Europe.
His army had entered Cilicia, and was preparing to cross the rapid
mountain stream of the Seleph. On June 10, 1190, they marched slowly
across the narrow bridge, and the Emperor, impatient to get to the
front, urged his horse into the stream, intending to swim to the
opposite shore. The raging waters suddenly seized him, and hurried him
away before the eyes of the people. When he was drawn out, far down
the river, he was a corpse.

Boundless lamentations resounded throughout the army; the most
brilliant ornament and sole hope of Christendom was gone; the troops
arrived at Antioch in a state of the deepest dejection. From thence a
number of the pilgrims returned home, scattered and discouraged, and a
pestilence broke out among the rest, which was fatal to the greater
number of them. It seemed, says a chronicler, "as though the members
would not outlive their head." The Emperor's son, Duke Frederick of
Swabia, reached the camp before Ptolemais with five thousand men,
instituted there the Order of the Teutonic Knights--who were destined
hereafter to found a splendid dominion on the distant shores of the
German Ocean--and soon afterward followed his father to the grave.

The highest hopes were soon destroyed by this lamentable downfall. It
seemed as if a stern fate had resolved to give the Christian world a
distant view of the possibility of victory; the great Emperor might
have secured it, but the generation which had not understood him was
doomed to misery and defeat. A second winter, with the same fearful
additions of hunger and sickness, came upon the camp before Ptolemais,
and the measure of misfortune was filled by renewed and bitter
quarrels among the Frankish princes. King Guy was as incompetent as
ever, and so utterly mismanaged the Christian cause that the marquis
Conrad of Montferrat indignantly opposed him. Queen Sibylla, by
marriage with whom Guy had gained possession of the crown, died just
at this juncture. Conrad instantly declared tha