"Thieves, verily!" thought the king, turning white from shame and rage. "Here is conspiracy-open rebellion! Horses shall tear them all to pieces. What, ho, there! Open the door! Open the door for the king!"

"For the constable, you mean,' " said a voice through the key-hole. "You're a pretty fellow!" The king said nothing.

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Thinking to escape, in the king's name, voice," after hiding to plunder his closet.

" said the

We've got

The sexton could not refrain from another gibe at his prisoner.

"I see you there," said he, " by the big lamp, grinning like a rat in a trap.'

The only answer King Robert made was to dash his enormous foot against the door, and burst it open. The sexton, who felt as if a house had given him a blow in the face, fainted away; and the king, as far as his sense of dignity allowed him, hurried to his palace, which was close by.

"Well," said the porter, "what do you want?" "Stand aside, fellow!" roared the king, pushing back the door with the same gigantic foot. "Seize him!" cried the porter.

"On your lives!" cried the king. fellow! Who am I?"

"Look at me,

"A madman and a fool; that's what you are!" cried the porter. "Hold him fast!”

In came the guards, with an officer at their head,

who had just been dressing his curls at a looking-glass. He had the looking-glass in his hand.

"Captain Francavilla," said the king, "is the world run mad? or what is it? Your rebels pretend not even to know me! Go before me, sir, to my rooms!" And, as he spoke, the king shook off his assailants, as a lion does curs, and moved onward.

Captain Francavilla put his finger gently before the king to stop him; and then, looking with a sort of staring indifference in his face, said in a very mincing tone, "Some madman."

King Robert tore the looking-glass from the captain's hands, and looked himself in the face. It was not his own face.

"Here is witchcraft!" exclaimed the King Robert. "I am changed." And, for the first time in his life, a sensation of fear came upon him, but nothing so great as the rage and fury that remained.

"Bring him in-bring him in!" now exclaimed other voices, the news having got to the royal apartments; "the king wants to see him."

King Robert was brought in; and there, amidst roars of laughter, he found himself face to face with another King Robert, seated on his throne, and as like his former self as he himself was unlike, but with more dignity.

"Hideous impostor! forward to tear him down.

exclaimed Robert, rushing

The court, at the word "hideous," roared with greater laughter than before; for the king, in spite of his pride, was at all times a handsome man; and there

was a strong feeling, at present, that he had never in his life looked so well.

Robert, when half way to the throne, felt as if a palsy had smitten him. He stopped, and essayed to vent his rage, but could not speak.

The figure on the throne looked him steadily in the face. Robert thought it was a wizard, but hated far more than he feared it, for he was of great courage.

It was an Angel. But the Angel was not going to disclose himself yet, nor for a long time.

"Since thou art royal-mad," said the new sovereign, "and in truth a very king of idiots, thou shalt be crowned and sceptered, and be my fool. Fetch the cap and bauble, and let the King of Fools have his coronation."

Robert felt that he must submit.

While the attendants were shaving his head, fixing the cap, and jeeringly dignifying him with the baublescepter, he was racking his brain for schemes of vengeance. What exasperated him most of all, next to the shaving, was to observe that those who had flattered him most when a king were the loudest in their contempt now that he was the court fool.

At length the king ordered the fool to be taken away in order to sup with the dogs. Robert was stupefied; but he found himself hungry against his will, and gnawed the bones which had been cast away by his nobles.

VIII

KING ROBERT OF SICILY

PART II

The proud King Robert of Sicily lived in this way for two years, always raging in his mind, always sullen in his manners, and, without the power to resent it, subjected to every indignity which his quondam favorites could heap on him. For the new monarch seemed unjust to him only. He had all the humiliations, without any of the privileges, of the cap and bells, and was the dullest fool ever heard of.

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All the notice the king took of him consisted in his asking, now and then, in full court, when everything was silent, Well, fool, art thou still a king?" Robert for some weeks loudly answered that he was; but, finding that the answer was but a signal for a roar of laughter, he converted his speech into the silent dignity of a haughty and royal attitude; till, observing that the laughter was greater at this dumb show, he ingeniously adopted a manner which expressed neither defiance nor acquiescence, and the Angel for some time let him alone.

Meantime, everybody but the unhappy Robert blessed the new, or, as they supposed him, the altered king; for everything in the mode of government was changed. Taxes were light; the poor had plenty; work was reasonable. Half the day throughout Sicily was given to industry, and half to healthy and intellectual enjoyment; and the inhabitants became at once the manliest and tenderest, the gayest and most studious

people in the world. Wherever the king went, he was loaded with benedictions; and the fool heard them and wondered. And thus, for the space of time we have mentioned, he lived wondering, and sullen, and hating, and hated, and despised.

At the expiration of these two years, or nearly so, the king announced his intention of paying a visit to his brother the Pope and his brother the Emperor, the latter agreeing to come to Rome for the purpose. He went accordingly with a great train, all clad in the most magnificent garments but the fool, who was arrayed in fox-tails, and put side by side with an ape dressed like himself. The people poured out of their houses, and fields, and vineyards, all struggling to get a sight of the king's face, and to bless it; the ladies strewing flowers, and the peasants' wives holding up their rosy children, which last sight seemed particularly to delight the sovereign.

The fool, bewildered, came after the court pages, by the side of his ape, exciting shouts of laughter; though some persons were a little astonished to think how a monarch so kind and considerate to all the rest of the world should be so hard upon a sorry fool. But it was told them that this fool was the most perverse and insolent of men toward the prince himself; and then, although their wonder hardly ceased, it was full of indignation against the unhappy wretch, and he was loaded with every kind of scorn and abuse. The proud King Robert seemed the only blot and disgrace upon the island.

The fool had still a hope that, when his Holiness saw