"It is fear, and not piety, that seems to soften the hardness of thy heart. Begone: thou canst not deceive Allah."
Dakianos retired, confounded with this last reproach, but still more distracted at having humbled himself so far.
In the midst of all these misfortunes which succeeded each other to oppress this enemy of God, the revolt, which was considerably augmented, demanded an example to be made, and the heart of Dakianos engaged him to render it of the greatest severity. To that effect he caused to be erected in the public square, upon the ashes of his palace, a throne of iron; he commanded all his Court and all his troops to be clothed in red,[4] and to be covered with black turbans. He took care to put on the same habit, with a design of murdering in one moment five or six hundred thousand souls, whom he resolved to sacrifice to the safety of his throne, to the manes of his children, to his lost honour, and to what affected him still more, the incessant remorse and horror that gnawed his heart. But before he performed this cruel execution, he resolved once more to visit the cavern, in hopes that his weapons, the usual confidence of the wicked, might intimidate those whom by prayers or by menaces he could obtain nothing from. When he arrived there, he redoubled his usual blasphemies.
[4] This colour in the East is a mark of the vengeance of princes.
"Tremble, thou wretch!" said Catnier then to him, without any emotion or so much as raising his head, which lay upon his paws.
"Shall I tremble?" returned Dakianos: "Allah Himself cannot make me tremble."
"But He can punish thee," pursued Catnier; "thou drawest near thy last moment."
Dakianos, at that word, listening only to his resentment, took his arrows and his bow.
"We shall see," said he, "whether I am not redoubtable—to thee at least."
He then shot an arrow at him with the utmost strength of his arm; but a supernatural power made it fall at the feet of him who shot it, and at the same instant there sprang out of the cavern a serpent, which was above twenty feet in length, and whose dreadful and inflamed look made him tremble. Dakianos would have taken his flight; but the serpent soon overtook him, grasped him round the body, and dragged him through the whole city, that all his subjects might be witnesses of his terror and of his punishment. He then conveyed him to the iron throne which he had prepared for the scene of his vengeance. It was there that, being devoured by degrees, Dakianos by his dreadful sufferings gave a terrible example of the punishment due to ingratitude and impiety. The serpent afterwards returned to his cavern without having done the least hurt to any person, and all the inhabitants of Ephesus loaded it with benedictions at its departure.