"Where is the keeper?"
The King walked to the sedan, opened the door, and dragging the dead man forth, flung him sprawling on the pavement.
Sergius stood speechless, seeing what the victor had not—arrests, official inquests, and the dread machinery of the law started, with results not in foresight except by Heaven. Before he had fairly recovered, Nilo had the sedan out and the poles fixed to it, and in the most cheerful, matter-of-fact manner signed him to take up the forward ends.
"Where is the Greek?" the monk asked.
That also the King managed to answer.
"In the cistern—drowned!" exclaimed Sergius, converting the reply into words.
The King drew himself up proudly.
"O Heavens! What will become of us?"
The exclamation signified a curtain rising upon a scene of prosecution against which the Christian covered his face with his hands.... Again Nilo brought him back to present duty.... In a short time Lael was in the chair, and they bearing her off.
Sergius set out first for Uel's house. The time was near morning; but for the conflagration the indications of dawn might have been seen in the east. He was not long in getting to understand the awfulness of the calamity the city had suffered, and that, with thousands of others, the dwellings of Uel and the Prince of India were heaps of ashes on which the gale was expending its undiminished strength.