he straining crowd, the
lifted, threatening arms, the stretched necks about the citadel. 'O
Lord, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance. At the word, sirs,
cleave a way.' And then he cried above the infernal riot, 'Save, Holy
Sepulchre! Save, Saint George!' and the wedge drove into the thick of
them.

This work was butcher's work, like sawing through live flesh. Too much
blood in the business: after a while the haft of the King's axe got
rotten with it, and at a certain last blow gave way and bent like a
pulpy stock. He helped himself to a beheaded Mameluke's scimitar, and
did his affair with that. Once, twice, thrice, and four times they
furrowed that swarm of men; nothing broke their line. Richard himself
was only cut in the feet, where he trod on mailed bodies or broken
swords; the others (being themselves in mail) were without scathe. They
held the square until the Count of Champagne came up with knights and
Pisan arbalestiers, and then the day was won. They drove out the
invaders; on the Templars' house they ran up the English dragon-flag.
King Richard rested himself.

Two days later a pitched battle was fought on the slopes above Joppa.
Saladin met Richard for the last time, and the Melek worsted him. Our
King with fifteen knights played the wedge again when his enemy was
packed to his taste; and this time (being known) with less carnage. But
the left wing of the invading army re-entered the town, the garrison had
a panic. Richard wheeled and scoured them out at the other end; so they
perished in the sea. Men say, who saw him, that he did it alone. So
terrible a name he had with the Saracens, this may very well be. There
had never been seen, said they, such a fighter before. Like sheep they
huddled at his sight, and like sheep his onset scattered them. 'Let God
arise,' says Milo with a shaking pen: 'and lo! He arose. O lion in the
path, who shall stand up against thee?'

He drove Saladin into the hills, and set him manning once more the
watch-towers of Jerusalem. But he had reached his limit; sickness
fastened on him, and on the ebb of his fury came lagging old despair.
For a week he lay in his bed delirious, babbling breathless foolish
things of Jehane and the Dark Tower, of the broomy downs by Poictiers,
the hills of Languedoc, of Henry his handsome brother, of Bertran de
Born and the falcon at Le Puy. Then followed a pleasant thing. Saladin,
the noble foe, heard of it, and sent Saphadin his brother to