punishment for his guilt. The moment that the case of the
criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanged, great
wails went up from the hired mourners posted on the outer rim of
*the arena, and the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast
hearts, wended slowly their homeward way, mourning greatly
that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have
merited so dire a fate.

But, if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth
from it a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his
majesty could select among his fair subjects, and to this lady he
was immediately married, as a reward of his innocence. It
mattered not that he might already possess a wife and family, or
that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own
selection; the king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to
interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward. The
exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately, and
in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, and a priest,
followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing
joyous airs on golden horns and treading an epithalamic measure,
advanced to where the pair stood, side by side, and the wedding
was promptly and cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass bells
rang forth their merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs, and
the innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on his
path, led his bride to his home.

This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering
justice. Its perfect fairness is obvious. The criminal could not
know out of which door would come the lady; he opened either he
pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next