dared to disturb him; the assembly moved on tiptoe and conversed in whispers.  The experienced divined that the prisoners were certain to be condemned, for the king would wake with indigestion, and vent his uneasy sensations upon them.  Full an hour elapsed before the king awoke with a snort and called for a draught of water.  How Felix envied that draught!  He had neither eaten nor drunk since the night previous; it was a hot day, and his tongue was dry and parched.

The citizen was first accused; he denied any treasonable designs or expressions whatever; as for the other prisoner, till the time he was arrested he did not even know he had been in his service.  He was some stroller whom his grooms had incautiously engaged, the lazy scoundrels, to assist them.  He had never even spoken to him; it the knave told the truth he must acknowledge this.

“How now,” said the king, turning to Felix; “what do you say?”

“It is true,” replied Felix, “he has never spoken to me nor I to him.  He knew nothing of what I said.  I said it on my own account, and I say it again!”

“And pray, sir knave,” said the king, sitting up on his couch, for he was surprised to hear one so meanly dressed speak so correctly, and so boldly face him.  “What was it you did say?”

“If your majesty will order me a single drop of water,” said the prisoner, “I will repeat it word for word, but I have had nothing the whole day, and I can hardly move my tongue.”

Without a word the king handed him the cup from which he had himself drunk.  Never, surely, was water so delicious.  Felix drained it to the bottom, handed it back (an officer took it), and with one brief thought of Aurora, he said:  “Your majesty, you are an incapable commander.”

“Go on,” said the king sarcastically; “why am I incapable?”

“You have attacked the wrong city; these three are all your enemies, and you have attacked the first.  They stand in a row.”

“They stand in a row,” repeated the king; “and we will knock them over like three nine-pins.”

“But you have begun with the end one,” said Felix, “and that is the mistake.  For after you have taken the first you must take the second, and still after that the third.  But you might have saved much trouble and time if——­”

“If what?”

“If you had assaulted the middle one first.  For then, while the siege went on, you would have been able to prevent either of the other two towns from sending assistance, and when you had taken the first and put your garrison in it, neither of the others could have stirred, or reaped their corn, nor could they even communicate with each other, since you would be between them; and in fact you would have cut your enemies in twain.”

“By St. John!” swore the king, “it is a good idea.  I begin to think—­but go on, you have more to say.”

“I think, too, your majesty, that by staying here as you have done this fortnight past without action, you have encouraged the other two cities to make more desperate resistance; and it seems to me that you are in a dangerous position, and may at any moment be overwhelmed with disaster, for there is nothing whatever to prevent either of the other two from sending troops to burn the open city of Aisi in your absence.  And that danger must increase every day as they take courage by your idleness.”