One more adventure at sea awaited the king before he reached the Holy Land. “Full of health, and light as a feather,” he led the way “as fast as a stag could run” in a direct line across the water till Markab was sighted. Thence the fleet sailed down the coast past Tortosa, Tripoli, and [Sidenote: _June_ 6 or 7] Beyrout.[629] Suddenly, between Beyrout and Sidon, Richard and his companions in the leading galley saw ahead of them a ship of such size “that we read of no larger one ever existing save the ark of Noah.”[630] On a nearer view they perceived that it had three tall masts; one side of it was covered with green felt or tarpaulin, the other with yellow;[631] and its whole appearance, to western eyes, was unnatural and uncanny.[632] Richard’s men hailed it and demanded whence it came and where it belonged. “We are Genoese, for Tyre,” was the answer. But one of Richard’s oarsmen said: “Hang me, sire, if that ship be not Turkish!” At his suggestion another galley was ordered to go close up to the ship without hailing her; this was done, and her crew immediately opened fire on the galley with arbalests and Damascus bows. Richard’s galley came swiftly up; his men tried to board the ship, but in vain. The king swore he would hang them all if they let the Turks escape. Again and again they renewed the attack; at last they fairly stormed the ship, but were driven back again into their own vessels. Then Richard bade them make a breach in the enemy ship’s side or keel; in this they succeeded, and she sank. Some thirty-five of her officers and engineers were saved and kept as prisoners by Richard’s orders; the rest of the men on board her were either slain or drowned.[633] When the victors reached their destination they learned that the ship had been specially built by order of Saladin’s brother Safadin and despatched from Beyrout to carry reinforcements and supplies to the besieged Saracens in Acre, but had been unable to enter the harbour and was, when the Franks overtook her, cruising about, waiting for an opportunity to return thither;[634] she carried, besides her crew, at least six hundred and fifty picked soldiers;[635] a man, doubtless one of the prisoners, who had seen her loaded at Beyrout, said eight hundred, and further asserted that she contained a hundred camel-loads of arms of all kinds, victuals and other stores “beyond reckoning,” bottles filled with Greek fire, and two hundred “ugly grey serpents” which, according to one account, he had himself helped to stow in her, and which were destined to be let loose against the Christian host;[636] probably these were some kind of serpent-like contrivances for throwing the fire. In the Saracen camp the story of the catastrophe was somewhat differently told by a Moslem who represented himself as its sole survivor, rescued and sent by the Christians to inform his people of the disaster which had befallen their cause. He seems to have stated that the dromond had been sunk by its own captain to