And now he turned his steps to Jerusalem itself, but the Frenchmen forsook him, lest it should be said that an English king had recovered the Holy Sepulchre. Never was he so cast down as at this defection. Without their aid his little army could not hope to succeed. As he wrestled with his grievous disappointment, a knight begged him to ascend a mount from which he might gaze upon Jerusalem. But the king snapped the switch which he held in his hand, and cast his surcoat over his head, while the angry tears gushed forth. “O Lord God,” he prayed, “suffer not mine eyes to behold Thy holy city, since Thou wilt not grant that I deliver it from the hands of Thy foes!” Back again over the weary sands of the desert he toiled, sick at heart and sick of body, but not so sick that he could not again drive the enemy before him. But he had failed, though he had done all that man could do. Saladin agreed to a truce of three months, three days, and three hours, and with this poor result Richard was forced to be content. So he left the Holy Land, never to return. Richard, however, was never long without the adventures which he so ardently sought. On the homeward voyage he landed at Ragusa, on the Adriatic shore, meaning to pass through Germany in disguise. But the gloves in the belt of his page betrayed him as a great personage, and he fell into the hands of his foe, Leopold of Austria, who at length found himself able to pay off old scores. Ultimately Richard was sold to the emperor, who put him in chains, and raked the past for offences wherewith to accuse his royal captive. For a time Richard disappeared entirely from view, but the place of his captivity leaked out at last. An old story tells us that his whereabouts were discovered by the minstrel Blondel, who loved the king, and set out on a weary quest to seek him. From castle to castle he passed, singing under the walls a song which Richard had composed. One day, to his great delight, he heard a voice which he knew full well troll out the second verse of the song from a dungeon cell. Forthwith he hastened to England and told the news. Historians, however, frown upon this pleasing story. Richard was tried at a Great Council, where he defended himself boldly, and cleared himself of all the charges urged against him. Nevertheless, his captor would not let him go without ransom, which was valued at twenty-seven times the king’s weight, and amounted to the colossal sum for those days of £100,000. Richard wrote home to his ministers and begged them to collect the money as speedily as possible, as he was weary of captivity. While they were raising the ransom, which was a grievous burden even to rich England, Richard whiled away the weary hours by writing ballads, one of which ran thus:——