"Unloose his fetters!" he commanded.

The men hesitated, apparently doubting whether they had heard
aright.

Zephoranim stamped his foot impatiently.

"Unloose him, I say! ... By the gods! must I repeat the same thing
twice? Since when have soldiers grown deaf to the voice of their
sovereign? ... And why have ye bound this aged fool with such many
and tight bonds? His veins and sinews are not of iron,--methinks
ye might have tied him with thread and met with small resistance!
I have known many a muscular deserter from the army fastened less
securely when captured! Unloose him--and quickly too!--Our
pleasure is that, ere he dies, he shall speak an he will, in his
own defence as a free man."

In trembling haste and eagerness the guards at once set to work to
obey this order. The twisted cords were untied, the heavy iron
fetters wrenched asunder,--and in a very short space Khosrul stood
at comparative liberty. At first he did not seem to understand the
King's generosity toward him in this respect, for he made no
attempt to move,--his limbs were rigidly composed as though they
were still bound,--and so stiff and motionless was his weird,
attenuated figure that Theos beholding him, began to wonder
whether he were made of actual flesh and blood, or whether he
might not more possibly be some gaunt spectre, forced back by
mystic art from another world in order to testify, of things
unknown, to living men. Zephoranim meanwhile called for his cup-
bearer, a beautiful youth radiant as Ganymede, who at a sign from