truth could they desire than the sudden and complete vengeance which
had fallen upon those worse than ordinary sinners who had offended
against the king's majesty by forgetting that 'Honesty Is the Best
Policy'?

At this point of the discourse the head of the legserpent rose from the
floor of the temple, towering above the pulpit, above the priest, then
curving downward, with open mouth slowly descended upon him. Horror
froze the sermon-pump. He stared upward aghast. The great teeth of the
animal closed upon a mouthful of the sacred vestments, and slowly he
lifted the preacher from the pulpit, like a handful of linen from a
washtub, and, on his four solemn stumps, bore him out of the temple,
dangling aloft from his jaws. At the back of it he dropped him into
the dust hole among the remnants of a library whose age had destroyed
its value in the eyes of the chapter. They found him burrowing in it,
a lunatic henceforth--whose madness presented the peculiar feature,
that in its paroxysms he jabbered sense.

Bone-freezing horror pervaded Gwyntystorm. If their best and wisest
were treated with such contempt, what might not the rest of them look
for? Alas for their city! Their grandly respectable city! Their
loftily reasonable city! Where it was all to end, who could tell!

But something must be done. Hastily assembling, the priests chose a
new first priest, and in full conclave unanimously declared and
accepted that the king in his retirement had, through the practice of
the blackest magic, turned the palace into a nest of demons in the
midst of them. A grand exorcism was therefore indispensable.

In the meantime the fact came out that the greater part of the
courtiers had been dismissed as well as the servants, and this fact
swelled the hope of the Party of Decency, as they called themselves.
Upon it they proceeded to act, and strengthened themselves on all sides.

The action of the king's bodyguard remained for a time uncertain. But
when at length its officers were satisfied that both the master of the
horse and their colonel were missing, they placed themselves under the
orders of the first priest.

Every one dated the culmination of the evil from the visit of the miner
and his mongrel; and the butchers vowed, if they could but get hold of
them again, they would roast both of them alive. At once they formed
themselves into a regiment, and put their dogs in training for attack.

Incessant was the talk, in