A murmur of superstitious horror arose.
"Ho, guard!" cried the queen. "Guard, ho!"
It is my belief that some cool-headed gentleman had bethought himself of the guard before ever the queen, for it was only a few moments before a score or so of armed men had entered the room and taken a position, in the form of a semicircle, before the throne.
The eyes of Lathendra Lepraylya were blazing like that great jewel on her brow. Those eyes were fixed upon Brendaldoombro, and I actually thought that the old raptor quailed a little under that look of outraged majesty. If this was indeed so, it was for an instant or two only. His look, one of baffled fury, then became fixed and defiant.
"So!" said Lathendra Lepraylya. "What madness is this that I see? What blood-howl is this that I hear? No woman or man in Drome may be deprived of liberty or life without a fair trial; and yet you, yes, even you, O Brendaldoombro, are here striving to make a shambles of the very throne itself."
She raised her hand and pointed toward us.
"If these men are indeed—"
"They are not men!" the old villain shouted. "They are demons who have taken the human shape, to attain here in Drome some fell purpose. Death, I say! Death to these masqueraded devils! Let death be swift and—"
"Peace, I say!" exclaimed Lepraylya, stamping her sandaled foot. "And, if these men from the World Above are indeed but devils counterfeit, could we kill them, O Brendaldoombro? Since when can mere man kill a devil?"
"When they are in the human shape, he can! Death! Death to these fiends who—"