‘Well, but why were you in such terror of this so-called king?’ Again the boy lifted up his hands in astonishment, with the question, ‘Don’t you know?’ Onesimus explained that he was an Asiatic, and did not know much about the neighbourhood of Rome. Ofellus therefore garrulously poured out the legend of the place. ‘There was once some Greek or other,’ he said, ‘named Hippolytus, who had vowed to live a virgin life for Diana. He was killed by the jealousy of his father, who got Neptune to frighten his chariot horses with a sea monster. So the poor youth was flung out of his chariot, and dragged to death. Then Diana brought him here, and raised him to life again, and called him Virbius, and he was her priest. But, because he was raised to life, every priest has to murder his predecessor before he can be priest himself.’ ‘And may any one kill the priest who can?’ ‘Yes, but first they’ve to pluck the golden bough.’ ‘The golden bough?’ ‘Yes. It is not really golden, you know; it is that yellow-white plant, which grows on an old oak in the wood.’ ‘Mistletoe?’ said Onesimus. ‘Yes. If a man wants to be king he has to pluck it, and then fight or murder the present king. If he fails he is killed; if he wins he kills the king, and becomes king in his place.’ ‘Is the king often killed?’ ‘Very often. Some runaway slave is sure to kill him, and so escape the cross or the branding-iron. Hardly a year passes that he is not attacked. My father says that, before I was born, one king, who was very strong and fierce, was priest for a good many years; and then the Emperor Caligula, out of sheer mad malice, sent a strong young slave on purpose to kill him.’ ‘But what harm would the king have done to us?’ ‘None to a boy like me, nor to one who is free-born; but--’ ‘You take me for a runaway slave?’ asked Onesimus. Ofellus nodded his head, and added, ‘I saw the king among the trees.’ And then he quoted an old Roman song about-- ‘The dim lake that sleeps Beneath Aricia’s trees; The trees in whose dim shadow The ghastly priest doth reign: The priest who slew the slayer, And shall himself be slain.’ Onesimus, too, had seen the Priest of Diana; but, as he was some distance off, had not observed him closely. Now, however, the goat-boy’s words seized his attention. Whoever succeeded in killing the Nemorensian King was secure from the consequences of all past misdeeds, and had ample maintenance and a fine spacious temple to live in. Wandering down the rocky bed of the stream sacred to Egeria, Onesimus had seen the shrine, and had wondered why the trees around it were hung with so many gay woollen streamers, and so many votive tablets; and why women came to it from Rome with garlands on their heads and torches in their hands; and why they treated the priest with so much reverence.