green wood a thousand years and waited upon by elves and fairies and
all manner of pygmies, and they taught me the speech of birds, and what
the trees whisper to each other from dawn to dusk, and the war-cries of
the winds, with other much delectable knowledge which would have made me
wiser than the wisest--but now that I am awake I have forgot it all."

Theron eyed him curiously. This was not the way the bitter court-fool
had been wont to speak. "You seem to me a changed fool," he said,
wearily.

Diogenes patted him fondly on the shoulder.

"Set it down to hearing birds whistle and watching green things grow. I
am ripe and mellow. If you squeezed me dry you would find no drop of
bitter in me. I bulge with benevolence like a ripe fig--and therefore
your lugubrious visage troubles me."

Theron answered, heavily: "My child is charged with sorcery. There is no
man but me to champion her. If I fail to win the day she dies by fire."

Diogenes seemed grieved. "She was a sweet lass and she gave me sweet
milk to drink, and she showed me the way to the wonder-world of the
wood. If I were something more of a fool and something less of a
wiseacre I would champion her myself." And he swelled his lean body and
strutted, ludicrously martial.

"Away, fool!" Theron said, angrily, for the fantastic figure vexed him.

But Diogenes was not to be offended.

"Nay, now," he hummed, benignly. "You are short with me, yet my brain
bubbles with all the wit of the elder world. When I woke this morn in
the green wood, a bird sang in my ear and his song told me to go down to
Syracuse and creep into the King's garden; and because I am wise enough
to know that the birds are wiser than I, why, I came, but I did not
think it was to see a fair maid murdered. I would have liked such a
sight once, but now I do not, so I will go and sleep in the
rose-garden. That is what the fairies told me to do, and they will tell
me when to wake. Courage, ancient! courage!"

He paused for a moment, with his head cocked on one side, eying the
executioner compassionately, yet listening with pricked, bat-wing ears.
Some sound startled him, for he suddenly stirred like a startled hare,
and, stooping, scuttled with incredible swiftness into the shelter of
the royal gardens, where he was soon lost to sight.

Theron sighed as if his heart would break. "The very fool pities me. I
am grown old and weak and have no hope."

Even as he spoke the sound of the footsteps