Again the boy lifted up his hands in astonishment, with the question, ‘Don’t you know?’
Onesimus explained that he was an Asiatic, and did not know much about the neighbourhood of Rome. Ofellus therefore garrulously poured out the legend of the place. ‘There was once some Greek or other,’ he said, ‘named Hippolytus, who had vowed to live a virgin life for Diana. He was killed by the jealousy of his father, who got Neptune to frighten his chariot horses with a sea monster. So the poor youth was flung out of his chariot, and dragged to death. Then Diana brought him here, and raised him to life again, and called him Virbius, and he was her priest. But, because he was raised to life, every priest has to murder his predecessor before he can be priest himself.’
‘And may any one kill the priest who can?’
‘Yes, but first they’ve to pluck the golden bough.’
‘The golden bough?’
‘Yes. It is not really golden, you know; it is that yellow-white plant, which grows on an old oak in the wood.’
‘Mistletoe?’ said Onesimus.
‘Yes. If a man wants to be king he has to pluck it, and then fight or murder the present king. If he fails he is killed; if he wins he kills the king, and becomes king in his place.’
‘Is the king often killed?’
‘Very often. Some runaway slave is sure to kill him, and so escape the cross or the branding-iron. Hardly a year passes that he is not attacked. My father says that, before I was born, one king, who was very strong and fierce, was priest for a good many years; and then the Emperor Caligula, out of sheer mad malice, sent a strong young slave on purpose to kill him.’