“Old Man of the Mountain,” and acted under his orders.[886] This is confirmed by two of our best English authorities,[887] and by the French historians who lived and wrote in the Holy Land; one of the earliest of these latter says that “some people” reported the murderers to have been hired by Richard, “but,” he adds, “this was not a bit true”;[888] while another states that the deed was done to avenge certain other Ismaïlites whom the marquis had caused to be first robbed and then drowned.[889] This story is at any rate more intrinsically probable than either Ibn Alathyr’s or that which was accepted at Saladin’s court and sent to Europe by Conrad’s friends; indeed, the relations between these latter and Richard during the rest of their stay in the Holy Land seem hardly compatible with a real belief on their part in Richard’s guilt. There were now some ten thousand Frenchmen, under Hugh of Burgundy and other barons, lodging in tents outside Tyre. As soon as Conrad was buried these barons called upon Isabel to surrender the city to them to hold in trust for the king of France. She boldly answered that “when the king returned, she would willingly surrender it to him, unless before that time it had another lord.”[890] The closing words of this answer were a scarcely veiled announcement of her resolve to assert her independence as queen by right of inheritance and bring in a new claimant to the lordship of the land by taking another consort; and it is scarcely possible to avoid a suspicion that she had already made her choice. Count Henry had gone back from Tyre as far as Acre;[891] there he received the news of Conrad’s death. He at once returned to Tyre; “and when the people saw him, they straightway elected him as sent by God to be their ruler and lord, and prayed him to accept the crown and wed its heiress, the widow of the marquis.” He answered that he must first ascertain how his uncle King Richard would regard the project. When Richard heard the whole of the strange story, he brooded over it for a long while; at last he said to Henry’s messengers: “Sirs, I should greatly wish that my nephew might be king, if it please God, when the land shall be conquered; but not that he wed the marchioness, whom the marquis took from her rightful lord and lived with in such wise that if Count Henry trusts my counsel he will not take her in marriage. But let him accept the kingship, and I will give him in demesne Acre and its port-dues, Tyre, Joppa, and jurisdiction over all the conquered land. And then tell him to come back to the host and bring the Frenchmen with him, as quickly as he can, for I want to go and take Darum—if the Turks dare wait there for me!”[892]