g," he asserted, hotly. "What ribaldry is this? I am the
King!"

A chorus of derisive laughter came from his spectators, amused at the
insistence of the fool. After all, if Diogenes chose to jeopardize his
head, what was it to them? Robert glared at all those familiar faces
that dared to regard him so familiarly. Every contemptuous glance of
their eyes, every mocking note of their voices were so many arrows,
stinging his tortured mind beyond endurance. Was this some sick dream
from which a mighty effort of will should set him free?

"This is dangerous sport, to tease the lion!" he yelled. "Now, by my
royal word--"

He made a stride forward as if to advance upon his tormentors. Sigurd
Blue Wolf advanced, caught him by the arm and whispered to him, not
unkindly:

"His Majesty is at his prayers within. You were wise to slip away ere he
comes out, for the sight of you may anger him. Quick, fool, into the
wood."

Robert tried in vain to shake off his mighty grasp. He beat
ineffectually at the Northman's breast as he might have beaten at a
gate of brass.

"Insolent fool!" he screamed. "How can the King be within when I stand
here? I am the King!"

But even as he spoke he stiffened as a man suddenly struck with
catalepsy. For again all eyes were turned away from him to the doorway
of the church, and there, framed in that doorway, Robert's haggard eyes
saw his own image, his royal likeness, his very self. So had he seen
himself that morning in his Venetian mirror--the familiar smooth face
and waved hair, the familiar carriage, the chosen robes and gold and
jewels. All present, save only Robert, saluted Robert's double
reverentially, Sigurd released his grasp of Robert's arm, and then on
Robert's stricken ears came the sound of his own voice from the
threshold of the church.

"Who says he is the King?" his own voice asked. The archbishop turned to
him who spoke and answered, "Sire, your fool in a most unseemly humor
plagues us."

Into Robert's distraught brain there leaped some wild idea of
conspiracy, of intrigue to supplant him by the means of some pretender
fashioned like himself.

"Who is this impostor?" he cried, and, turning to Sigurd, he commanded,
"Seize him, soldiers!"

Sigurd answered with a blow like the butt of a ram.

"Silence, dog!" he shouted, now out of all patience. Robert reeled under
an insult bitterer than the blow, and insanity overswept his senses.

"Traitors! villains!" he cried, and cla