the end of this Crusade was, it took to "besieging Acre," and in
reality lay perishing as of murrain on the beach at Acre, without
shelter, without medicine, without food. Not even Richard Coeur-
de-Lion, and his best prowess and help, could avert such issue
from it.

Richard's Crusade fell in with the fag-end of Barbarossa's; and it
was Richard chiefly that managed to take Acre;--at least so
Richard flattered himself, when he pulled poor Leopold of
Austria's standard from the towers, and trailed it through the
gutters: "Your standard? YOU have taken Acre?" Which turned out
ill for Richard afterwards. And Duke Leopold has a bad name among
us in consequence; much worse than he deserves. Leopold had stuff
in him too. He died, for example, in this manner: falling with his
horse, I think in some siege or other, he had got his leg hurt;
which hindered him in fighting. Leg could not be cured: "Cut it
off, then!" said Leopold. This also the leech could not do;
durst not, and would not; so that Leopold was come quite to a
halt. Leopold ordered out two squires; put his thigh upon a block
the sharp edge of an axe at the right point across his thigh:
"Squire first, hold you that axe; steady! Squire second, smite you
on it with forge-hammer, with all your strength, heavy enough!"
Squire second struck, heavy enough, and the leg flew off;
but Leopold took inflammation, died in a day or two, as the leech
had predicted. That is a fact to be found in current authors
(quite exact or not quite), that surgical operation: [Mentzel,
Geschichte der Deutschen (Stuttgard and
Tubingen, 1837), p. 309.] such a man cannot have his flag trailed
through the gutters by any Coeur-de-Lion.--But we return to the
beach at Acre, and the poor Crusaders, dying as of murrain there.