He was on the right hand of the Emperor John, 'Handsome John,' whom the people had once loved and whom they were now ready to love again, having tasted of the scorpions with which Andronicus had regaled them. 'Handsome John,' with his splendid brown beard--the light of torches flashed upon it now--and his cloth-of-gold cloak drawn closely round him like a bishop's cope, so that it hid his hands and half his bridle on each side, and covered the back of his head, too, and a great part of his cheeks; he wore the tall imperial head-dress also, and it shaded his eyes. The people had recognised him more by his fine beard and his cloth of gold than by his face, but the beard was unmistakable; and besides, there were men with him who scattered coins to the multitude, and those coins were good. But the followers who were nearest to him and Zeno, and who pressed round them both to defend them, if need be, were almost all sailors, Venetian shipwrights and workmen from the docks, though Tocktamish's Tartars were close behind, making a tremendous shouting, and striking their long tasselled spears against each other after their manner, with a clatter of wood like a monstrous rattle; and other soldiers had joined them by hundreds, and after them pressed the artisans of Constantinople, the Bulgarian blacksmiths, the Italian stone-cutters and masons, the Moorish armourers and the Syrian sword-smiths from Damascus, the Sicilian rope-makers, the Persian silk-weavers, and the Smyrniote carpet-weavers, and the linen-weavers from Alexandria with many others; and every man who was not a soldier had something in his hand for a weapon--a hammer, a mallet, or a carpet-maker's staff, or only a stout cudgel. And they ran, and pushed, and forced their way through the gate, spreading out again within the court, cheering and yelling for Johannes in a dozen languages at once. The Emperor John sat quite still on his horse, wrapped in his cloak, but Zeno rode forward, till he was almost upon the knot of the guards who had pulled down Andronicus, and he threw up his hand, crying out to the men not to kill, in a voice that dominated the terrific din; and he was but just in time, for he was only obeyed because he offered a reward. 'Ten pounds of gold for Andronicus alive!' he shouted. For that was the price Andronicus had set on his head that morning, and what was enough for Zeno was enough for an Emperor. So half a dozen of the guards dragged the man alive into the palace, and bound him securely with his hands behind him, and stripped off his jewels and his gold, and kicked him into a small secret room behind the porter's lodge, and shut the door. There the corpse-faced man was squatting in a dark corner, blowing some coals to a glow in an earthen pan, because he might soon be called to do more work, and unless the vinegar was really boiling hot the fumes of it would not put out the eyesight. As Andronicus lay on the floor he could see the man.