, anything that belonged to humanity. He was well lodged,
indeed, where the last fool had died, and richly clothed as the other
had been, and he fed delicately, and was given the fine wines of France
to drink, lest his brain should be clouded by stronger liquor and he
should fail to make the court laugh. But he knew well enough that
somewhere in Toledo or Valladolid the next court jester was being
trained to good manners and instructed in the art of wit, to take the
vacant place when he should die. It pleased him therefore sometimes to
look down at the great assemblies from the gallery and to reflect that
all those magnificent fine gentlemen and tenderly nurtured beauties of
Spain were to die also, and that there was scarcely one of them, man or
woman, for whose death some one was not waiting, and waiting perhaps
with evil anxiety and longing. They were splendid to see, those fair
women in their brocades and diamonds, those dark young princesses and
duchesses in velvet and in pearls. He dreamed of them sometimes,
fancying himself one of those Djin of the southern mountains of whom the
Moors told blood-curdling tales, and in the dream he flew down from the
gallery on broad, black wings and carried off the youngest and most
beautiful, straight to his magic fortress above the sea.

They never knew that he was sometimes up there, and on this evening he
did not wait long, for he had his message to deliver and must be in
waiting on the King before the royal train entered the throne room.
After he was gone, the courtiers waited long, and more and more came in
from without. Now and then the crowd parted as best it might, to allow
some grandee who wore the order of the Golden Fleece or of some other
exalted order, to lead his lady nearer to the throne, as was his right,
advancing with measured steps, and bowing gravely to the right and left
as he passed up to the front among his peers. And just behind them, on
one aide, the young girls, of whom many were to be presented to the King
and Queen that night, drew together and talked in laughing whispers,
gathering in groups and knots of three and four, in a sort of irregular
rank behind their mothers or the elder ladies who were to lead them to
the royal presence and pronounce their names. There was more light where
they were gathered, the shadows were few and soft, the colours tender as
the tints of roses in a garden at sunset, and from the place where they
stood the sound of young v