re separates the island of Sicily from the main land.

CHAPTER VIII.

KING RICHARD AT MESSINA.

1190

The triumphal entry into Messina.--The jealousy of the
Sicilians and the envy of the French.--The winter sets in
upon Richard and Philip in Sicily.--Winter quarters.--Tancred.--His
history.--William of Sicily.--Constance.--Oath of
allegiance.--Joanna's estates in the promontory of Mont
Gargano.--Tancred seizing the power.--A good
pretext for war.--Richard's demand.--Tancred's
response.--Reprisals.--Fortifying a monastery.--Soldiers'
troubles.--The army provokes a riot in Messina.--The intense
excitement.--The conference broken up.--Richard's uncontrollable
passion.--The attack on Messina.--Contest between Philip and
Richard.--A reconciliation.--Fortifying.--Richard brings
Tancred to terms.--What Richard required of Tancred.--The
final conditions of peace.--King Richard's league with
ancred.--The treaty signed.--Royal trustees are not
always faithful.--Extravagance of Richard's court.--Spring
approaching.--Repairing the fleet.--Battering-rams.--Modern
ordnance.--The methods of war in ancient
times.--Catapultas.--Ballistas.--Maginalls.--The religious
observances of tyrants.--Richard's penitence and penance.--Was
he sincere?

Although Richard came down to the Italian shore, opposite to Messina,
almost unattended and alone, and under circumstances so
ignoble--fugitive as he was from a party of peasants whom he had
incensed by an act of petty robbery--he yet made his entry at last
into the town itself with a great display of pomp and parade. He
remained on the Italian side of the strait, after he arrived on the
shore, until he had sent over to Messina, and informed the officers of
his fleet, which, by the way, had already arrived there, that he had
come. The whole fleet immediately got ready, and came over to the
Italian side to take Richard on board and escort him over. Richard
entered the harbor with his fleet as if he were a conqueror returning
home. The ships and galleys were all fully manned and gayly decorated,
and Richard arranged such a number of musicians on the decks of them
to blow trumpets and horns as the fleet sailed along the shores and
entered the harbor that the air was filled with the echoes of them,
and the whole country was called out by the sound. The Sicilians were
quite alarmed to see so formidable a host of foreign soldiers coming
among them; and even their allies, the French, were n