red:

"Come--now we can get to the road."

The king hesitated, was going to demur; but just then we heard
the door give way, and knew that those desolate men were in the
presence of their dead.

"Come, my liege! in a moment they will strike a light, and then
will follow that which it would break your heart to hear."

He did not hesitate this time. The moment we were in the road
I ran; and after a moment he threw dignity aside and followed.
I did not want to think of what was happening in the hut--I couldn't
bear it; I wanted to drive it out of my mind; so I struck into the
first subject that lay under that one in my mind:

"I have had the disease those people died of, and so have nothing
to fear; but if you have not had it also--"

He broke in upon me to say he was in trouble, and it was his
conscience that was troubling him:

"These young men have got free, they say--but _how_? It is not
likely that their lord hath set them free."

"Oh, no, I make no doubt they escaped."

"That is my trouble; I have a fear that this is so, and your
suspicion doth confirm it, you having the same fear."

"I should not call it by that name though. I do suspect that they
escaped, but if they did, I am not sorry, certainly."

"I am not sorry, I _think_--but--"

"What is it? What is there for one to be troubled about?"

"_If_ they did escape, then are we bound in duty to lay hands upon
them and deliver them again to their lord; for it is not seemly
that one of his quality should suffer a so insolent and high-handed
outrage from persons of their base degree."

There it was again. He could see only one side of it. He was
born so, educated so, his veins were full of ancestral blood that
was rotten with this sort of unconscious brutality, brought down
by inheritance from a long procession of hearts that had each done
its share toward poisoning the stream. To imprison these men
without proof, and starve their kindred, was no harm, for they were
merely peasants and subject to the will and pleasure of their lord,
no matter what fearful form it might take; but for these men to
break out of unjust captivity was insult and outrage, and a thing
not to be countenanced by any conscientious person who knew his
duty to his sacred caste.

I worked more than half an hour before I got him to change the
subject--and even then an outside matter did it for me. This was
a something which caught our eyes as we struck the summit of a
sm