If the fleet’s arrival had been a great sight for the people of Messina, its departure must have been a much more imposing spectacle. Three dromonds, one of which carried Queen Joan and the Damsel of Navarre, went in advance of all the rest. Thirteen ships formed the second line or squadron; in the third were fourteen, in the fourth twenty, in the fifth thirty, in the sixth forty, in the seventh sixty; the last consisted of the galleys, on one of which was the king himself. Throughout the fleet the order of its going was so carefully arranged that a trumpet’s sound could be heard from squadron to squadron, and a man’s voice from ship to ship.[582] When all had passed, with a fair wind, through the Far into the open sea, the galleys sped forward to overtake the slower vessels[583] and took their place as the advanced guard of the whole fleet, Richard’s own ship leading.[584] “The king had arranged, as far as possible, that the ships should never be separated unless indeed a storm should disperse them. So the galleys moderated their speed and endeavoured to keep pace with the transports, for the protection of the multitude and the comfort of the weak.”[585] Suddenly the wind dropped, and the whole fleet had to anchor for the night. Next morning, Maunday Thursday, [Sidenote: _April 11_] “He Who took the wind from us,” as one of the pilgrims says, “gave it us back again”; but the breeze was so faint that they made very little progress, and at night they were again becalmed. On the following morning (Good Friday, April 12) they were met by “a contrary wind on the left,”[586] and all that day they had to struggle with a heavy gale and storm. As good pilgrims they endured their sufferings “right willingly, as a fitting discipline for the holy day.”[587] On their leader wind and weather had no effect; he was “just as healthy and hearty, brave and strong, on sea as on land”;[588] throughout this first experience of Mediterranean storms and all those that followed, he “remained perfectly calm, and ceased not to comfort the others and encourage them to endure with confidence, hoping for better things.”[589] Every evening he had “a large candle in the lantern” lighted on his galley, to show the way to the other ships; they all followed the light, and if one got out of the course he waited for it to get back. “Thus as a hen leads her chickens out to feed he led his mighty fleet,” sailing day and night till late on the Wednesday in Easter Week (April 17) they anchored off Crete.[590] Next morning, it seems, Richard counted up the ships, and found to his “great wrath” that despite all his precautions no less than twenty-five were missing.[591] He then directed his course to Rhodes, reached its capital city on the following Monday (April 22), and stayed there three days, partly because he was unwell, partly in the hope of hearing some tidings of the missing vessels, and also to make inquiries about Cyprus and its “tyrant.”[592]