hope of seizing the crown vanished. There remained to meet his placable
brother with a show of fraternal loyalty.

But Richard was delayed in his purpose of reaching England, and danger
again threatened him. He had been set free near the end of January,
1194. He dared not enter France, and Normandy, then invaded by the
French, was not safe for him. His best course was to take ship at a
German port and sail for England. But it was the season of storms; he
lay a month at Anvers imprecating the weather; meanwhile, avarice
overcame both fear and honor in the emperor's heart, the large sum
offered him outweighed the opposition of the lords of the Diet, and he
resolved to seize the prisoner again and profit by the French king's
golden bribe.

Fortunately for Richard, the perfidious emperor allowed the secret of
his design to get adrift; one of the hostages left in his hands heard of
it and found means to warn the king. Richard, at this tidings, stayed
not for storm, but at once took passage in the galliot of a Norman
trader named Alain Franchemer, narrowly escaping the men-at-arms sent to
take him prisoner. Not many days afterwards he landed at the English
port of Sandwich, once more a free man and a king.

What followed in Richard's life we design not to tell, other than the
story of his life's ending with its romantic incidents. The liberated
king had not been long on his native soil before he succeeded in
securing Normandy against the invading French, building on its borders a
powerful fortress, which he called his "Saucy Castle," and the ruins of
whose sturdy walls still remain. Philip was wrathful when he saw its
ramparts growing.