be
slaughtered. These, however, soon ceased to stimulate the appetite for
blood. From such combats "the transition was inevitable to those of
men, whose nobler and more varied passions spoke directly, and by the
intelligible language of the eye, to human spectators; and from the
frequent contemplation of these authorised murders, in which a whole
people--women as much as men, and children intermingled with
both--looked on with leisurely indifference, with anxious expectation,
or with rapturous delight, whilst below them were passing the direct
sufferings of humanity, and not seldom its dying pangs, it was
impossible to expect a result different from that which did, in fact,
take place--universal hardness of heart, obdurate depravity, and a
twofold degradation of human nature, the natural sensibility and the
conscientious principle." "Here was a constant irritation, a system of
provocation to the appetite for blood, such as in other nations are
connected with the rudest stages of society, and with the most
barbarous modes of warfare."

"Whither wilt thou that we direct our steps?" inquired Merodac, with
mock submission, when the cords were unloosed.

"Lead the way--I care not," said his moody victim; "'tis as well that
I follow."

A bitter and scornful laugh accompanied the reply of the dwarf.

"That were a pretty device truly--to let thee lag behind, and without
thy tether. Ah, ah," chuckled the squire as they left the chamber,
"Diogenes and his lantern was a wise man's search compared with ours."

How the slave came to be so learned in Grecian lore we know not. His
further displays of erudition were cut short by the soothsayer, who
cried out to him as they departed--

"Remember, thy carcase for his if he return not."

Now, in York, at this day, may be observed, where an angle of the
walls abuts on the "Mint Yard," a building named "the Multangular
Tower," and supposed to have been one of the principal fortifications
of the city. However this might be, its structure has puzzled not a
little even those most conversant with antiquities. The area was not
built up all round, but open towards the city. The foundations of a
wall have latterly been discovered, dividing it lengthwise through the
centre, and continued for some distance into the town; so that the
whole may not inaptly be represented by a Jewtrump--the tongue being
the division, the circular end the present Multangular Tower,
continued by walls on each s