freedom of speech, about which these unruly fools had made their
boast, and, with a sly malice, I could not help whispering a word
on this to Nais as she stood at my elbow. But Nais clutched at my
hand, and implored me for caution. "Oh, be silent, my lord," she
whispered back, "or they will tear you in pieces. They are on fire
for mischief now."

"Yet a few hours back you were for killing me yourself," I
could not help reminding her.

She turned on me with a hot look. "A woman can change her
mind, my lord. But it becomes you little to remind her of her
fickleness."

A man in the press beside me wrenched round with an effort,
and stared at me searchingly through the darkness. "Oh!" he said.
"A shaved chin. Who are you, friend, that you should cut a beard
instead of curling it? I can see no wound on your face."

I answered him civilly enough that, with "freedom" for a
watchword, the fashion of my chin was a matter of mere private
concern. But as that did not satisfy him, and as he seemed to be
one of those quarrelsome fellows that are the bane of every
community, I took him suddenly by the throat and the shoulder, and
bent his neck with the old, quick turn till I heard it crack,
and had unhanded him before any of his neighbours had seen what had
befallen. The fierce press of the crowd held him from slipping to
the ground, and so he stood on there where he was, with his head
nodded forward, as though he had fallen asleep through heaviness,
or had fainted through the crushing of his fellows. I had no