he was sending to him. Under this was falsely marked the signature of
Feng.

Now when they had reached Britain, the envoys went to the king, and
proffered him the letter which they supposed was an implement of
destruction to another, but which really betokened death to themselves.
The king dissembled the truth, and entreated them hospitably and kindly.
Then Amleth scouted all the splendour of the royal banquet like vulgar
viands, and abstaining very strangely, rejected that plenteous feast,
refraining from the drink even as from the banquet. All marvelled that
a youth and a foreigner should disdain the carefully cooked dainties of
the royal board and the luxurious banquet provided, as if it were
some peasant's relish. So, when the revel broke up, and the king was
dismissing his friends to rest, he had a man sent into the sleeping-room
to listen secretly, in order that he might hear the midnight
conversation of his guests. Now, when Amleth's companions asked him why
he had refrained from the feast of yestereve, as if it were poison, he
answered that the bread was flecked with blood and tainted; that there
was a tang of iron in the liquor; while the meats of the feast reeked of
the stench of a human carcase, and were infected by a kind of smack of
the odour of the charnel. He further said that the king had the eyes of
a slave, and that the queen had in three ways shown the behaviour of a
bondmaid. Thus he reviled with insulting invective not so much the feast
as its givers. And presently his companions, taunting him with his old
defect of wits, began to flout him with many saucy jeers, because he
blamed and cavilled at seemly and worthy things, and because he attacked
thus ignobly an illustrious king and a lady of so refined a behaviour,
bespattering with the shamefullest abuse those who merited all praise.

All this the king heard from his retainer; and declared that he who
could say such things had either more than mortal wisdom or more than
mortal folly; in these few words fathoming the full depth of Amleth's
penetration. Then he summoned his steward and asked him whence he had
procured the bread. The steward declared that it had been made by the
king's own baker. The king asked where the corn had grown of which it
was made, and whether any sign was to be found there of human carnage?
The other answered, that not far off was a field, covered with the
ancient bones of slaughtered men, and still bearing plainly all the