e
been willing for surrender, withheld their word through terror of the
consequence. It was a fine comment on the freedom of speech, about which
these unruly fools had made their boast, and, with a sly malice, I could
not help whispering a word on this to Nais as she stood at my elbow. But
Nais clutched at my hand, and implored me for caution. "Oh, be silent,
my lord," she whispered back, "or they will tear you in pieces. They are
on fire for mischief now."

"Yet a few hours back you were for killing me yourself," I could not
help reminding her.

She turned on me with a hot look. "A woman can change her mind, my lord.
But it becomes you little to remind her of her fickleness."

A man in the press beside me wrenched round with an effort, and stared
at me searchingly through the darkness. "Oh!" he said. "A shaved chin.
Who are you, friend, that you should cut a beard instead of curling it?
I can see no wound on your face."

I answered him civilly enough that, with "freedom" for a watchword, the
fashion of my chin was a matter of mere private concern. But as that did
not satisfy him, and as he seemed to be one of those quarrelsome fellows
that are the bane of every community, I took him suddenly by the throat
and the shoulder, and bent his neck with the old, quick turn till I
heard it crack, and had unhanded him before any of his neighbours had
seen what had befallen. The fierce press of the crowd held him from
slipping to the ground, and so he stood on there where he was, with his
head nodded forward, as though he had fallen asleep through heaviness,
or had fainted through the crushing of his fellows. I had no desire to
begin that last fight of mine in a place like this, where there was no
room to swing a weapon, nor chance to clear a battle ring.

But all this time the lean preacher from the mountains was sending forth
his angry anathemas, and still holding the strained attention of the
people. And next he set forth before them the cult of the Gods in the
ancient form as is prescribed, and they (with old habit coming back to
them) made response in the words and in the places where the old ritual
enjoins. It was weird enough sight, that time-honoured service of
adoration, forced upon these wild people after so long a period of
irreligion.

They warmed to the old words as the high shrill voice of the priest
cried them forth, and as they listened, and as they realised how
intimate was the care of the Gods for the tra