gaze upon yours--this being her noble and simple
attitude, just as I stand now--then turned she--thus--to me, and stretching
her arm out--so--and pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm,
calm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a
battle, 'Pluck me this false knave from the throne!' I, striding forward
as I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him
aloft--thus--as if he had been but a child." (The house rose, shouting,
stamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad over this
magnificent exhibition of strength--and there was not the shadow of
a laugh anywhere, though the spectacle of the limp but proud barber
hanging there in the air like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck was
a thing that had nothing of solemnity about it.) "Then I set him down
upon his feet--thus--being minded to get him by a better hold and heave
him out of the window, but she bid me forbear, so by that error he
escaped with his life.

"Then she turned her about and viewed the throng with those eyes of
hers, which are the clear-shining windows whence her immortal wisdom
looketh out upon the world, resolving its falsities and coming at the
kernel of truth that is hid within them, and presently they fell upon
a young man modestly clothed, and him she proclaimed for what he
truly was, saying, 'I am thy servant--thou art the King!' Then all were
astonished, and a great shout went up, the whole six thousand joining in
it, so that the walls rocked with the volume and the tumult of it."

He made a fine and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience,
augmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities;
then he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head
which the head ostler at the castle had given him that morning, and made
his conclusion--thus:

"Then the King dismissed the Maid most graciously--as indeed was her
desert--and, turning to me, said, 'Take this signet-ring, son of the
Paladins, and command me with it in your day of need; and look you,'
said he, touching my temple, 'preserve this brain, France has use for
it; and look well to its casket also, for I foresee that it will be
hooped with a ducal coronet one day.' I took the ring, and knelt and
kissed his hand, saying, 'Sire, where glory calls, there will I be
found; where danger and death are thickest, that is my native air; when
France and the throne need help--well, I say nothing