In the ordeal of water, the judge adjures the water, as in the preceding tests, by the balance and by fire, and the accused wades into water to his waist, while another shoots an arrow. The accused dives into the water and if he remains under while a swift runner returns the arrow, he is innocent, but otherwise is adjudged guilty. In the poison ordeal, after the selection of the particular poison the judge thus adjures the poison: ‘Thou, O poison, art the son of Brahma,[17] thou are persistent in truth and justice; relieve this man from sin and by thy virture become an ambrosia to him. On account of thy venomous and dangerous nature, thou art the destruction of all living creatures; thou art destined to show the difference between right and wrong, like a witness.’ The accused person eats the poison and if it easily digested, without violent symptoms, the king shall recognize him as innocent, and dismiss him, after having honored him, with presents. In the ordeal of sacred libation, the judge should give the accused water in which an image of that deity to whom he is devoted, has been bathed, thrice calling out the charge, with composure. One to whom any misfortune or calamity happens, within a week, or a fortnight, is proved to be guilty.”[18] Charlemagne apparently did not place much dependence in the _judicium Dei_, by means of the ordeal, at the beginning of his reign, for in 779, by his edict the trial by ordeal was to be used in the more trifling offenses, while cases of greater magnitude were to be tried by the civil law of the realm.[19] Later on in his reign, however, by his edicts of the year 806 and 809 this monarch seems to have come to regard the ordeal with much greater favor, for he frequently referred to this method of trial; when dividing up his empire between his sons he directed that all disputes should be settled by ordeal, and endeavored to force a greater regard for the judgments in trials by ordeal, on the part of the subjects, whom, it seems, had come to entertain his own early distrust in this species of trials.[20] It seems that Charlemagne completely believed in the efficacy of the ordeal, by the year 794, for we are told that in this year, a certain Bishop Peter, who was condemned by the Synod of Frankfort to clear himself of the suspicion of complicity in a conspiracy of treason against Charlemagne, being unable to obtain conjurators, one of his vassals offered to attempt the test of the ordeal, as his proxy, and on his success, the Bishop was adjudged innocent of the charge and was reinstated.[21]