he found it deserted; the Turkish garrison had fled at his approach. He seems to have left there in their stead the whole force that he had taken with him, and returned to Ascalon quite alone, for on the way back he nearly lost his life in an encounter with a wild boar in which he was evidently single-handed.[896] Six [Sidenote: _Apr. 28_] days later—the day of Conrad’s death—Roger de Glanville, whom Richard had left in command of the newly won fortress, made a daring reconnaissance through the Vale of Elah, up the steep mountain-pass which meets it on the other side of the central valley, across the plateau, and past the very gates of Jerusalem, and returned in triumph with [Sidenote: _Apr. 29_] a few stray Saracens whom he had captured. On the following day the king, riding somewhere “between Blanchegarde and Gaza,” came upon eight Saracens of whom he slew three and captured the other five. On the night of May 1 he was at Furbia, near the coast, between Ascalon and Gaza; here some Turks tried to surprise him asleep at early morn, but he was the first of his little band to awake and went forth straight from bed, stopping for nothing but his sword and shield, to meet the assailants; four were slain, seven made prisoners; “the rest fled before his face.”[897] It must have been either between these two exploits or directly after the latter of them that Count Henry’s messengers met the king “in the plains of Ramlah, spurring across the open country in pursuit of a band of Turks who were fleeing before him.”[898] His restlessness was probably increased by the disturbed state of his mind. Envoys from his own dominions were arriving one after another with contradictory letters and messages, some giving alarming accounts of the state of affairs there, some assuring him that all was well; some beseeching him to come home, some exhorting him to continue the sacred task in which he was engaged; all deepening his perplexities till he knew not which to believe or how to act.[899] One point alone stood out clear before him. Now that Ascalon was lost to the Moslems, its place as the key of Egypt, the base and storehouse which sheltered troops and supplies from the Nile valley for transmission to Jerusalem and the other fortresses still held by the Moslems in Syria, had been taken by Darum. Before Richard could bring himself to quit the country, and also before Saladin’s army reassembled, Darum must be won for Christendom.