inn in the village on the other side of the
water, and had stopped there over night, by compulsion, he being
taken deadly sick with a strange and sudden disorder. I had been
ordered to cross to the city in all haste and bring the best
physician; I was doing my best; naturally I was running with all
my might; the night was dark, I ran against this common person
here, who seized me by the throat and began to pummel me, although
I told him my errand, and implored him, for the sake of the great
earl my master's mortal peril--

The common person interrupted and said it was a lie; and was going
to explain how I rushed upon him and attacked him without a word--

"Silence, sirrah!" from the court. "Take him hence and give him
a few stripes whereby to teach him how to treat the servant of
a nobleman after a different fashion another time. Go!"

Then the court begged my pardon, and hoped I would not fail
to tell his lordship it was in no wise the court's fault that this
high-handed thing had happened. I said I would make it all right,
and so took my leave. Took it just in time, too; he was starting
to ask me why I didn't fetch out these facts the moment I was
arrested. I said I would if I had thought of it--which was true
--but that I was so battered by that man that all my wit was knocked
out of me--and so forth and so on, and got myself away, still
mumbling. I didn't wait for breakfast. No grass grew under my
feet. I was soon at the slave quarters. Empty--everybody gone!
That is, everybody except one body--the slave-master's. It lay
there all battered to pulp; and all about were the evidences of
a terrific fight. There was a rude board coffin on a cart at
the door, and workmen, assisted by the police, were thinning a
road through the gaping crowd in order that they might bring it in.

I picked out a man humble enough in life to condescend to talk
with one so shabby as I, and got his account of the matter.

"There were sixteen slaves here. They rose against their master
in the night, and thou seest how it ended."

"Yes. How did it begin?"

"There was no witness but the slaves. They said the slave that
was most valuable got free of his bonds and escaped in some strange
way--by magic arts 'twas thought, by reason that he had no key,
and the locks were neither broke nor in any wise injured. When
the master discovered his loss, he was mad with despair, and threw
himself upon his people with his heavy stick,