ause you don't know. _You_ a magician! Good friends,
this tramp is a mere fraud and liar."

This distressed the monks and terrified them. They were not used
to hearing these awful beings called names, and they did not know
what might be the consequence. There was a dead silence now;
superstitious bodings were in every mind. The magician began to
pull his wits together, and when he presently smiled an easy,
nonchalant smile, it spread a mighty relief around; for it indicated
that his mood was not destructive. He said:

"It hath struck me speechless, the frivolity of this person's
speech. Let all know, if perchance there be any who know it not,
that enchanters of my degree deign not to concern themselves with
the doings of any but kings, princes, emperors, them that be born
in the purple and them only. Had ye asked me what Arthur the great
king is doing, it were another matter, and I had told ye; but the
doings of a subject interest me not."

"Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought you said 'anybody,' and so
I supposed 'anybody' included--well, anybody; that is, everybody."

"It doth--anybody that is of lofty birth; and the better if
he be royal."

"That, it meseemeth, might well be," said the abbot, who saw his
opportunity to smooth things and avert disaster, "for it were not
likely that so wonderful a gift as this would be conferred for
the revelation of the concerns of lesser beings than such as be
born near to the summits of greatness. Our Arthur the king--"

"Would you know of him?" broke in the enchanter.

"Most gladly, yea, and gratefully."

Everybody was full of awe and interest again right away, the
incorrigible idiots. They watched the incantations absorbingly,
and looked at me with a "There, now, what can you say to that?"
air, when the announcement came:

"The king is weary with the chase, and lieth in his palace these
two hours sleeping a dreamless sleep."

"God's benison upon him!" said the abbot, and crossed himself;
"may that sleep be to the refreshment of his body and his soul."

"And so it might be, if he were sleeping," I said, "but the king
is not sleeping, the king rides."

Here was trouble again--a conflict of authority. Nobody knew which
of us to believe; I still had some reputation left. The magician's
scorn was stirred, and he said:

"Lo, I have seen many wonderful soothsayers and prophets and
magicians in my life days, but none before that could sit idle and
see to the