“Silence!” exclaimed Coryon, who had all this time been moving restlessly in his seat.
“I come from a land—the greatest on the earth—that has an empire upon which the sun ne’er sets; we have no such wicked murders called sacrifices; yet we are safe against our enemies, and——”
“Silence, I tell thee! What think’st thou we care about thy country or thyself?” Coryon burst out.
“I say,” Leonard went on, disregarding him, “that every word this man utters is a lie. He cannot say one single sentence without uttering a lie——”
“If thou sayest more, I will have thee scourged as well as killed,” Coryon cried, in growing rage. “It speaketh well to these good people for my patience that I have let thee have thy say thus far. Never, for many a year, has mortal dared to flout me to my face as thou hast done.”
“O Coryon!” Leonard exclaimed, turning and facing him, “truly did I say that thou could’st not speak one single sentence without uttering some lie, and now thou art convicted. For I know of one, at least, that has flouted and dared thee to thy face; one whose spirit thou couldst not quell; and she but a woman—her name Fernina!”
At this a perfect howl of rage escaped from Coryon’s lips. He sprang up and clutched at the air, and gasped; and, for a moment, Leonard half thought he would have a fit. But he recovered himself, and shouted, in a screaming voice,
“Seize him! Gag him! Lay him on the feeding-ladle of our sacred tree! We will see how he fancies its embrace!” Then, turning round and addressing some one near him, he cried out,
“Bring forward the princess, that she may witness this my act of justice towards the murderer she would have taken to her bosom. Let my future wife look on. Ha! ha! ha! My future wife! How dost thou like the title, murderer of my son, and would-be king?”
His rage was something fearful to behold; many even of his own myrmidons trembled, and they made speed to do his bidding.