child, and a wondrous light and fragrance filled the stone
vault, and the tormentors fled, stricken with a mad terror.

Down from the castle and through the streets of the hushed and weeping
city the Image led the mother and her babe to their own door, and when
they had entered the house, and the people stood by sobbing and
praying, the Image burst into flames, and on the spot where it stood
there remained a little heap of ashes when that burning was done.

Judge if the land of Sarras was silent after this day of divine
interposition. Hastily summoning the Bishops of the realm, and
gathering a body of men-at-arms, the Archbishop Desiderius proclaimed
from the Jesus altar of the High Church the deposition of the King
Orgulous. Talisso was seized and stripped of his royal robes; a width
of sackcloth was wrapped about his body, and with a rope round his neck
he was led to the Mound of Coronation. There, on the height whereon he
had thrust his sword into the four regions of heaven, he received his
sentence.

Standing erect in a circle on the top of the Mound the nine Bishops of
the realm held each a lighted torch in his hand. In the centre stood
Desiderius beside the King deposed, and holding high his torch uttered
the anathema which was to sever all bonds of plighted troth and loyalty
and service, and to cast him forth from the pale of Holy Church, and to
debar him from the common charity of all Christian people. At that
moment the Bishops marked with awe the strange resemblance between
Desiderius and the King, and the eyes of these two met, and each was
aware how marvellously like to himself was the other. But with a clear
unfaltering voice the Archbishop cried aloud the doom:

"May he be outcast from the grace of heaven and the gladness of earth.
May the stones betray him, and the trees of the forest be leagued
against him. In want or in sickness may no hand help him. Accursed
may he be in his house and in his fields, in the water of the streams
and in the fruits of the earth. Accursed be all things that are his,
from the cock that crows to awaken him to the dog that barks to welcome
him. May his death be the death of Pilate and of Judas the betrayer.
May no earth be laid on the earth that was he. May the light of his
life be extinguished thus!"

And the Archbishop cast down his torch and trampled it into blackness;
and crying "Amen, amen, amen!" the Bishops threw down their torches and
trod them under fo