United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Academy of Epicurus was by no means a trifle spun for vainglory in the fertile fancy of Demedes; but a fact just as the Brotherhoods of the City were facts, and much more notorious than many of them. Wiseacres are generally pessimistic. Academy of Epicurus indeed! For once there was a great deal in a name.
"From the brave to the fair!" Thus to the gate of Blacherne. There they drew up, and saluted the officer of the guard, and cheered: "Live Constantine! To the good Emperor, long life!" All the way Demedes rode with lifted visor. Returning through the twilight, earlier in the close streets than in the open, he led his company by the houses of Uel and the Prince of India.
"Sergius, dear Sergius," he said, "I did not intend to offend you. There is another thing I have to speak about. Stay!" "Is it something different?" Sergius asked. "Ay as light and darkness are different." "Be quick then." Sergius was standing under the lintel of the door. Demedes slipped past him, and on the outside stopped. "You are going to Therapia?" he asked. "Yes."
"Yes who got him to drown that fine young fellow Demedes." "Where is the negro now?" "In a cell here." "Why didn't they give him to the lion?" "Oh, he had a friend the Princess Irene." "What is to be done with him?" "Afterwhile, when the affair of the cistern is forgotten, he will be given a purse, and set free." "Pity! For what sport to have seen him in front of the old Tartar!"
He believed Demedes had not seen Lael since the abduction, and that he would not try to see her while the excitement was up and the hunt going forward. But now the city was settled back into quiet now, if she were indeed in the cistern, he would come, the night being in his favor.
Thereupon Demedes passed to Sergius one of the handbills with which the Prince of India had sown the city. After the first line, the monk began stammering and stumbling; at the close of the first sentence, he stopped. Then he threw a glance at the Greek, and from the gaze with which he was met, he drew understanding and self-control.
He had managed to appear composed while under Demedes' observation. In the language of the time, some protecting Saint prompted him to beware of the Greek, and keeping the admonition, he had come well out of the interview; but hardly did the Hegumen's door close behind him before Lael's untoward fate struck him with effect.
One day a beggar with sore eyes and a foot swollen with elephantiasis an awful object to sight set a stool in an angle of the street a few doors from Uel's house; and thenceforward the girl's every appearance was communicated to Demedes, who never forgot the great jump of heart with which he heard of the gorgeous chair presented her by the Prince, and of the visit she forthwith made to the wall of the Bucoleon.
Nor was that all. The new ideas to which he had been converted facilitated reflection along the lines of wickedness. In the Plague of Crime, told the second time, he believed he had found what had befallen Lael. Demedes, he remembered, gave the historic episode to convince his protesting friend how easy it would be to steal and dispose of her.
Immediately the bolt inside was drawn, and the visitor passed in. Was it Demedes? The monk breathed again he believed it was anyhow the King would determine the question, and there was nothing to do meantime but bide the event. The sedan, it hardly requires saying, was a much more comfortable ambush than the recess of the door. Nilo merely felt the shaking the gale now and then gave the house.
Word Of The Day