The resentment of this prince had been kindled against the Englishman by an outrage on the part of Richard in ordering the standard of Austria to be thrown from the walls of Acre, where Leopold had presumptuously planted it after the capture of that place. Conrad of Montferrat had also taken umbrage at Richard’s lordly treatment of him, and was detected in courting alliance with Saladin for the restitution of Acre. Richard foiled him with deeper play. He proposed to give his sister, the ex-Queen of Sicily, as wife to Malek-Ahdel, brother of Saladin, that there might be erected at Jerusalem a mongrel empire of Christians and Moslems. Saladin toyed with the proposition sufficiently to delay Richard’s attack upon Jerusalem until that city had been greatly strengthened. Thousands of Christian captives were set to work upon the walls and in the ditches, under threat of being massacred, as were the Moslems by Richard’s order at Acre. Realizing that his scheme of alliance with Saladin had failed, Richard endeavored to engage his antagonist in battle in the open country; but the astute Moslem was too discreet to risk his cimeters against heavy swords, except when necessary. He had also some less martial schemes on foot; he seduced Conrad at least from whole-hearted loyalty to the cross, by promising to defend him in permanent possession of whatever cities he might take from his fellow-Christians. Conrad was soon assassinated by two Moslems. Richard was quickly accused of being accessory to this deed. The suspicion grew in plausibility when he forced Isabella, widow of Conrad, to marry his nephew, the Count of Champagne, who thus, through Isabella’s rights as sister of Sibylla, became titular King of Jerusalem. King Guy was compensated for the loss of his throne by the gift of the government of Cyprus, where his descendants reigned for two hundred years, until the Moslem wave had ingulfed the entire eastern Mediterranean. Saladin was also thought to have connived at the murder of Conrad. One of the murderers, however, confessed to having been the agent of the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of the sect of Assassins, who also avowed himself responsible for the deed.