Another small point of resemblance between the two sovereigns was a preference for doing their own scouting. One morning Richard, with a handful of picked knights, rode out from Ascalon to reconnoitre Darum. This castle, built by the late King Amalric on the site of an earlier fortification, had been the extreme south-western outpost of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem; it lay three or four miles south of the point where the coast-road crosses a watercourse which the historians of the Crusade called the Torrent or River of Egypt, because above that point it was in fact, in Amalric’s and Richard’s days and long afterwards, the boundary between Syria and Egypt.[855] Now that both these countries were under Moslem rule, Darum was the first halting-place in Syria for the caravans which brought supplies from “Babylon”—that is, Cairo—to Jerusalem. It chanced that when Richard drew near the place, a thousand Christian prisoners whom the Sultan was sending to Cairo under the charge of some of his household guards had just arrived there. At the sight of the king’s banner the escort, doubtless thinking the whole host from Ascalon was upon them, left the prisoners and sought shelter for themselves in the castle; but before they could reach it some were slain and twenty captured by Richard and his men. Thus, says Ambrose, “God delivered His people who were appointed to death, by sending King Richard to take the place of Saint Leonard, the liberator of captives.”[856] Some of the Christians, Frank and Syrian, thus rescued made, no doubt, a welcome addition to the diminished numbers of the host. Richard had several times already sent letters or messages to the marquis, calling on him to come and rejoin the Crusade and render the military service due to the Crown of Jerusalem for the fiefs which he held of it. Conrad at first took no notice of these appeals; to another and more urgent summons he finally answered that he would not set foot in the camp till he had had a personal interview elsewhere with the king of England.[857] Richard seemingly felt it necessary to overlook his insolence and consent to a meeting at Casal Imbert, half way between Acre and Tyre. But meanwhile a new trouble arose. Philip of France had gone home in August 1191 without leaving his lieutenant in Palestine, the duke of Burgundy, any money for the pay of the French soldiers, counting for that purpose on the share due to him of the bezants which the two kings then expected to receive in a few weeks from Saladin. When this expectation had become hopeless, Hugh asked Richard for a loan, and Richard, to avoid losing the French troops altogether, lent him five thousand marks.[858] This sum was exhausted long before February 1192; the French troops clamoured for their dues; Hugh asked Richard for another loan. This Richard refused. High words passed, and the duke, with the greater part of the Frenchmen, straightway departed to Acre.[859] There they found the Pisans and Genoese at strife.