llect.

On his arrival he lost no time in making up his dispatches for Saladin,
and delivered them to the Nubian, with a charge to set out by peep of
day on his return to the Soldan.

CHAPTER XXVII.

We heard the Techir--so these Arabs call
Their shout of onset, when, with loud acclaim,
They challenge Heaven to give them victory.
SIEGE OF DAMASCUS.

On the subsequent morning Richard was invited to a conference by Philip
of France, in which the latter, with many expressions of his high esteem
for his brother of England, communicated to him in terms extremely
courteous, but too explicit to be misunderstood, his positive intention
to return to Europe, and to the cares of his kingdom, as entirely
despairing of future success in their undertaking, with their diminished
forces and civil discords. Richard remonstrated, but in vain; and when
the conference ended he received without surprise a manifesto from the
Duke of Austria, and several other princes, announcing a resolution
similar to that of Philip, and in no modified terms, assigning, for
their defection from the cause of the Cross, the inordinate ambition and
arbitrary domination of Richard of England. All hopes of continuing
the war with any prospect of ultimate success were now abandoned; and
Richard, while he shed bitter tears over his disappointed hopes of
glory, was little consoled by the recollection that the failure was
in some degree to be imputed to the advantages which he had given his
enemies by his own hasty and imprudent temper.

"They had not dared to have deserted my father thus," he said to De
Vaux, in the bitterness of his resentment. "No slanders they could have
uttered against so wise a king would have been believed in Christendom;
whereas--fool that I am!--I have not only afforded them a pretext for
deserting me, but even a colour for casting all the blame of the rupture
upon my unhappy foibles."

These thoughts were so deeply galling to the King, that De Vaux was
rejoiced when the arrival of an ambassador from Saladin turned his
reflections into a different channel.

This new envoy was an Emir much respected by the Soldan, whose name
was Abdallah el Hadgi. He derived his descent from the family of the
Prophet, and the race or tribe of Hashem, in witness of which genealogy
he wore a green turban of large dimensions. He had also three times
performed the journey to Mecca, from which he derived his epithet of
El Hadg