They were, however, obliged to travel slowly, and it was three days before they gained the village on the northern slope of the mountains, having slept at refuges by the road.
"What are your plans ?" the knight asked Sir Cuthbert that night, as they sat by the fire of the hostelry.

"I would warn you that the town which you will first arrive at is specially hostile to your people, for the baron, its master, is a relation of Conrad of Montferat, who is said to have been killed by order of your king." "It is false," Cuthbert said.

"King Richard had appointed him King of Jerusalem; and, though he liked him not, thought him the fittest of those there to exercise sovereignty.

He was the last man who would have had an enemy assassinated; for so open is he of disposition that he would have fought hand to hand with the meanest soldier of his army had he desired to kill him." "I doubt not that it is so, since you tell me," the knight said courteously.

"But the people here have taken that idea into their minds, and it will be hard to disabuse them.