se,
but you lie." All the other Paladins who were present thought the same
and they said as much to the emperor; adding, that on no account should
Gan be sent ambassador to Marsilius. But Charles was infatuated. His
beard and his credulity had grown old together.

Gan was received with great honour in Spain by Marsilius. The king,
attended by his lords, came fifteen miles out of Saragossa to meet him,
and then conducted him into the city amid tumults of delight. There
was nothing for several days but balls, and games, and exhibitions
of chivalry, the ladies throwing flowers on the heads of the French
knights, and the people shouting "France! France! Mountjoy and St.
Denis!"

Gan made a speech, "like a Demosthenes," to King Marsilius in public;
but he made him another in private, like nobody but himself. The king
and he were sitting in a garden; they were traitors both, and began
to understand, from one another's looks, that the real object of the
ambassador was yet to be discussed. Marsilius accordingly assumed a more
than usually cheerful and confidential aspect; and, taking his visitor
by the hand, said, "You know the proverb, Mr. Ambassador--'At dawn, the
mountain; afternoon, the fountain.' Different things at different hours.
So here is a fountain to accommodate us."

It was a very beautiful fountain, so clear that you saw your face in
it as in a mirror; and the spot was encircled with fruit-trees that
quivered with the fresh air. Gan praised it very much, contriving to
insinuate, on one subject, his satisfaction with the glimpses he
got into another. Marsilius understood him; and as he resumed the
conversation, and gradually encouraged a mutual disclosure of their
thoughts, Gan, without appearing to look him in the face, was enabled to
do so by contemplating the royal visage in the water, where he saw its
expression become more and more what he desired. Marsilius, meantime,
saw the like symptoms in the face of Gan. By degrees, he began to touch
on that dissatisfaction with Charlemagne and his court, which he knew
was in both their minds: he lamented, not as to the ambassador, but as
to the friend, the injuries which he said he had received from Charles
in the repeated attacks on his dominions, and the emperor's wish to
crown Orlando king of them; till at length he plainly uttered his
belief, that if that tremendous Paladin were but dead, good men would
get their rights, and his visitor and himself have all thing