crown; on the fair, haughty face with its square, determined jaw,
aquiline nose, full, proud lips, and fierce, restless blue eyes.
Heartily the multitude admired Richard's manly beauty, his lordly air;
and with a right good-will they shouted joyously: "Long live the king!
Long live our Richard Lionheart!"

Before his accession to the throne, Richard had determined to go as a
Crusader to the rescue of the Holy Land. From his mother, who had
herself taken part in the Second Crusade, he had heard many stories of
the East,--that land of wonders and marvelous adventures. Richard was by
nature a rover, a warrior, a knight-errant. So it seemed to him a most
delightful prospect to travel, to see strange lands and peoples, to
fight in a holy war; and thus to indulge his own love of adventure and
of battle while advancing the glory of God. Nay, to do him justice,
Richard was religious too, in the strange fierce fashion of those
days,--days when one could be pious without being good; when the warrior
prayed and fought with equal zeal, deeming both acts of equal merit in
the sight of heaven; when the Christian believed the slaughter of
infidels well-pleasing to God; when the knight of the Cross was
confident that Christ pardoned all sins to the warrior who did battle
for His Holy Sepulchre. So Richard, though far from pious or exemplary
in his daily life, was moved by a genuine and fervent desire to deliver
Jerusalem from the infidels, into whose hands it had fallen again after
its conquest by Godfrey de Bouillon.

When all the tedious and costly preparations necessary for the Crusade
had been completed, Richard sent his fleet around by the Strait of
Gibraltar. He himself crossed over to France with the troops, intending
to march through that country to meet his ships at Marseilles, and there
to embark for Palestine.

At Vezelai, Richard met Philip of France, who had agreed to join him in
the Crusade. The two kings and their great armies marched together for
some distance, but finally separated, and proceeded southward by
different routes,--the French to Genoa, the English to Marseilles.

When Richard reached that seaport, he was much disappointed to find that
the fleet had not arrived. Leaving the main body of troops there to
await the arrival of the vessels, he procured a ship, and proceeded on
his way by sea, sailing along the coast of France and Italy. He stopped
at many cities, and sometimes traveled on land with only a f