Note 5 — Chapter VIII

The brave King Richard, having recruited himself at Ragusa, is said, by some, to have gone to Aquileia by sea, by others to have continued his journey by land; anyhow, it is pretty certain, that having stopped to take some refreshment at a way-side inn in the mountains of Dalmatia, or Styria, he incautiously handed a large gold piece to the landlady to change, and her suspicions being roused by this circumstance, she informed the authorities; and the end was that the King was seized by the treacherous Leopold of Austria, and imprisoned, as everyone knows. There is a tradition, however, which is not so well known, that shortly after his treacherous conduct to his brother-in-arms, Leopold of Austria, when out hunting, met with a severe injury to his right leg—surgery was not then what it is now—the limb mortified, and it was agreed on all hands that nothing could save the Prince's life but amputation. But who was to do it? No one would venture—when Leopold himself proposed that a sharp hatchet should be laid across his limb, and that, at his word of command, it should be struck with a ponderous mallet, when it was expected that the limb would be severed. The operation succeeded so far as the cutting went, but the bystanders were unable to staunch the blood, and the Prince bled to death—a fitting retribution for his treachery.