CHAPTER XXI.

RICHARD MADE CAPTIVE.

1192

The returning Crusaders met by a storm.--Richard's sudden change
of course.--His route homeward.--King Richard traveling in
disguise of a pilgrim.--Richard's enemies in Germany.--Fancied
security.--Richard solicits a passport.--Maynard's answer.--The
alarm given.--King Richard's flight through Germany.--Richard
concealed near Vienna.--His messenger.--Torturing the
messenger.--The king a captive.--The archduke imprisons Richard
in Tiernsteign.--The emperor buys the prisoner.

It was now late in the season, and the autumnal gales had begun to
blow. It was but a very short time after the vessels left the port
before so severe a storm came on that the fleet was dispersed, and
many of the vessels were driven upon the neighboring coasts and
destroyed. The Crusaders that had been left in Acre and Jaffa were
rather pleased at this than otherwise. They had been indignant at
Richard and the knights who were with him for having left them, to
return home, and they said now that the storm was a judgment from
Heaven against the men on board the vessels for abandoning their work,
and going away from the Holy Land, and leaving the tomb and the cross
of Christ unredeemed. Some of the ships, it is said, were thrown on
the coasts of Africa, and the seamen and knights, as fast as they
escaped to the shore, were seized and made slaves.

Richard's ship, and also the one in which the queens were embarked,
being stronger and better manned than the others, weathered the gale.
After it was over, the queens' vessel steered for Sicily, where, in
due time, they arrived in safety.

Richard did not intend to trust himself to go to any place where he
was known. Accordingly, as soon as he found himself fairly separated
from all the other vessels, he suddenly changed his course, and turned
northward toward the mouth of the Adriatic Sea. He landed at the
island of Corfu.[G] Here he dismissed his ship, and took three small
galleys instead, to go up to the head of the Adriatic Sea, and thence
to make his way homeward by land through the heart of Germany.

[Footnote G: For the situation of this island, see the map on page
164.]

He probably thought that this was the safest and best course that he
could take. He did not dare to go through France for fear of Philip.
To go all the way by sea, which would require him to sail out through
the Straits of Gibraltar into the Atlantic, would require altog