"O King," he said, "you see that they will never take us alive. In
sight of all these people will you add more deaths to your record?"
The murmur of the crowd grew louder. "Nay, all has not yet been said,"
he went on. "Listen, O King. You judge too quickly. There is not
proof enough of the lad's ownership."

"Not enough?" snarled the King. "I say there is enough and to spare.
Can this boy dispute the words of these men?"

John now looked at the Hermit eagerly. His heart beat with hope of
something, he knew not what.

The King sneered. "You see!" he cried triumphantly.

But once more the Hermit held up his hand. "Will you not question
these fellows further?" he asked. "Dare you hear more, O King?"

"Dare I!" blustered the King, "and why not, pray? If there be more to
say, tell it," he commanded the mountebanks.

"Ay," they answered eagerly, "we can indeed prove that the boy is ours."

"Tell how you came by him," interrupted the Hermit, in a tone not to be
disobeyed.

Tonio answered sullenly:--

"We have told already. We bought him for a gold piece, of a fisherman
on a distant coast. He had found the babe, nearly dead with cold and
hunger, floating in a basket on the sea. It was a castaway, a