up. When they let me in, we had a long yarn, over some
good whisky--for I was shaken to pieces--and I explained things as much
as I could, I told Tassoc that the room would have to come down, and
every fragment of it burned in a blast-furnace, erected within a
pentacle. He nodded. There was nothing to say. Then I went to bed.

"We turned a small army on to the work, and within ten days, that lovely
thing had gone up in smoke, and what was left was calcined, and clean.

"It was when the workmen were stripping the paneling, that I got hold of
a sound notion of the beginnings of that beastly development. Over the
great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, I found
that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an
old inscription, in ancient Celtic, that here in this room was burned
Dian Tiansay, Jester of King Alzof, who made the Song of Foolishness upon
King Ernore of the Seventh Castle.

"When I got the translation clear, I gave it to Tassoc. He was
tremendously excited; for he knew the old tale, and took me down to the
library to look at an old parchment that gave the story in detail.
Afterward, I found that the incident was well-known about the
countryside; but always regarded more as a legend than as history. And no
one seemed ever to have dreamt that the old East Wing of Iastrae Castle
was the remains of the ancient Seventh Castle.

"From the old parchment, I gathered that there had been a pretty dirty
job done, away back in the years. It seems that King Alzof and King
Ernore had been enemies by birthright, as you might say truly; but that
nothing more than a little raiding had occurred on either side for years,
until Dian Tiansay made the Song of Foolishness upon King Ernore, and
sang it before King Alzof; and so greatly was it appreciated that King
Alzof gave the jester one of his ladies, to wife.

"Presently, all the people of the land had come to know the song, and so
it came at last to King Ernore, who was so angered that he made war upon
his old enemy, and took and burned him and his castle; but Dian Tiansay,
the jester, he brought with him to his own place, and having torn his
tongue out because of the song which he had made and sung, he imprisoned
him in the Room in the East Wing (which was evidently used for unpleasant
purposes), and the jester's wife, he kept for himself, having a fancy for
her prettiness.

"But one night, Dian Tiansay's wife was not to be fou