Felix was led inside the entrenchment, unbound, and commanded to stand upright. There was a considerable assembly of the greater barons anxious to see the trial of the money-lender, who, though present, was kept apart from Felix lest the two should arrange their defence. The king was sleeping on a couch outside the booth in the shade; he was lying on his back breathing loudly with open mouth. How different his appearance to the time when he sat on his splendid charger and reviewed his knights! A heavy meal had been succeeded by as heavy a slumber. No one dared to disturb him; the assembly moved on tiptoe and conversed in whispers. The experienced divined that the prisoners were certain to be condemned, for the king would wake with indigestion, and vent his uneasy sensations upon them. Full an hour elapsed before the king awoke with a snort and called for a draught of water. How Felix envied that draught! He had neither eaten nor drunk since the night previous; it was a hot day, and his tongue was dry and parched.
The citizen was first accused; he denied any treasonable designs or expressions whatever; as for the other prisoner, till the time he was arrested he did not even know he had been in his service. He was some stroller whom his grooms had incautiously engaged, the lazy scoundrels, to assist them. He had never even spoken to him; it the knave told the truth he must acknowledge this.
"How now," said the king, turning to Felix; "what do you say?"
"It is true," replied Felix, "he has never spoken to me nor I to him. He knew nothing of what I said. I said it on my own account, and I say it again!"
"And pray, sir knave," said the king, sitting up on his couch, for he was surprised to hear one so meanly dressed speak so correctly, and so boldly face him. "What was it you did say?"
"If your majesty will order me a single drop of water," said the prisoner, "I will repeat it word for word, but I have had nothing the whole day, and I can hardly move my tongue."
Without a word the king handed him the cup from which he had himself drunk. Never, surely, was water so delicious. Felix drained it to the bottom, handed it back (an officer took it), and with one brief thought of Aurora, he said: "Your majesty, you are an incapable commander."
"Go on," said the king sarcastically; "why am I incapable?"
"You have attacked the wrong city; these three are all your enemies, and you have attacked the first. They stand in a row."
"They stand in a row," repeated the king; "and we will knock them over like three nine-pins."