"Ay! Saint and Sinner come to the same end!" gurgled the Lord Pandulph, ogling the purple Falernian.
"Fill up your goblets! Though it be a merry life to lead, I doubt if it will end in so cheery a death!" said Benilo, his eye wandering slowly from one to the other.
"Fill up the goblets!" shouted the Lord of Spoleto, rising and supporting his bulky carcass on the heavy oaken table.
With a sleepy leer he blinked at the guests.
"Down on your knees," he roared suddenly, his former intent reverting to him. "To the Sanctuary of the Goddess! On our knees we will implore her to receive us into her favour."
A strange spirit of recklessness had seized Benilo. Instead of resenting or resisting the proposition, he was the first to get down on all fours. His example had an electrifying effect. Although they swayed to and fro like sail-boats on angry sea-waves, all those still sober enough imitated the Chamberlain amid cheers and grunts, and slowly the singular procession, led by Benilo, set in motion with the expressed purpose of invading Theodora's apartments, which were situated beyond the great hall. The Lord Pandulph resembled some huge bear as on all fours he hobbled across the mosaic floor beside the Lord of Bracciano, who panted, grunted and swore and called on the saints, to witness his self-abasement. Being gouty and stout, he was at one time seized with a cramp in his leg and struck out vigorously with the result of striking the Lord of Civitella squarely in the jaw, whereupon the latter, toppling over, literally flooded the hall with profanity and surplus wine. The other ten hobbled behind the leaders, cursing their own folly, but enjoying to a degree the novelty of the pageant.
Thus they had traversed the great hall at a speed as great as their singular mode of locomotion and their intoxicated condition would permit. The background of the hall was but dimly lighted; the great curtain strung between the two massive pillars, which guarded the entrance into Theodora's apartments, excluded the glow of the multi-coloured lamps, strung in regular intervals in the corridor beyond.
Benilo was the first to reach the curtain. Resting one hand on the floor, he raised the other, after the manner of a dog, trying to push its folds aside, when they suddenly and noiselessly parted. Something hissed through the air, striking the object of its aim a stinging blow in the face—a cry of pain and rage, and Benilo, who had sprung to his feet, stood face to face with Theodora. At the same moment the lights in the great hall were turned on to a full blaze, revealing in its entire repelling atrocity the spectacle of the drunken revellers, who, upon experiencing a sudden check to their further progress, had come to a sluggish halt, some of them unable to retain their balance and toppling over in their tracks.
"Beasts! Swine!" hissed the woman, her eyes ablaze with wrath, the whip which had struck Benilo in the face, still quivering in her infuriated grasp. "Out with you—out!"
The sound of a silver whistle, which she placed between her lips, brought some five or six giant Africans to the spot. They were eunuchs, whose tongues had been torn out, and who, possessing no human weakness, were ferocious as the wild beasts of their native desert. Theodora gave them a brief command in their own tongue and ere the amazed revellers knew what was happening to them, they found themselves picked up by dusky, muscular arms and unceremoniously ejected from the hall, those lying in a semi-conscious stupor under the tables sharing the same fate.