it," never reflecting how enormous the disproportion was between
the marble helmet that had been in the church, and that of steel
before their eyes; nor how impossible it was for a youth seemingly
not twenty, to wield a piece of armour of so prodigious a weight

The folly of these ejaculations brought Manfred to himself: yet
whether provoked at the peasant having observed the resemblance
between the two helmets, and thereby led to the farther discovery
of the absence of that in the church, or wishing to bury any such
rumour under so impertinent a supposition, he gravely pronounced
that the young man was certainly a necromancer, and that till the
Church could take cognisance of the affair, he would have the
Magician, whom they had thus detected, kept prisoner under the
helmet itself, which he ordered his attendants to raise, and place
the young man under it; declaring he should be kept there without
food, with which his own infernal art might furnish him.

It was in vain for the youth to represent against this preposterous
sentence: in vain did Manfred's friends endeavour to divert him
from this savage and ill-grounded resolution. The generality were
charmed with their lord's decision, which, to their apprehensions,
carried great appearance of justice, as the Magician was to be
punished by the very instrument with which he had offended: nor
were they struck with the least compunction at the probability of
the youth being starved, for they firmly believed that, by his
diabolic skill, he could easily supply himself with nutriment.

Manfred thus saw his commands even cheerfully obeyed; and
appointing a guard with strict orders to prevent any food being
conveyed to the prisoner, he dismissed his friends and attendants,