“Oh, what doth ail the poor man?” said the compassionate lady. “Look how his eyes stare, and see how the sweat pours from him! And he can scarce stand upon his legs. I am sure it is some grievous malady. Can it be poison, thinkest thou?” “Speak, good landlord,” said the King. “What doth ail thee?” The King’s voice was utterly too much for the landlord. His struggles to speak ended in his shaking a few harsh sobs out of his dry throat. He then began to whimper like a child. His three auditors stared at him with looks of genuine pity and alarm. “I declare,” said the King, “I never saw anybody so overcome before. Something must be done for the poor fellow. I think we had better summon his son.” The mention of his son’s name acted on the landlord in much the same manner as a spark upon a keg of gunpowder. The process of cause and effect was far too swift to be at all related in the unhappy Gamaliel’s subsequent consciousness; but almost before he recalled upon what errand his son had gone, his tongue was released, and words flowed from it in a torrent. “The soldiers! the soldiers!” he cried. “The soldiers are coming, your Majesty!” The landlord knew so little of what he was saying, that he was half stunned to find his three auditors looking at him so wildly. “What is this you say, landlord?” said the King. In the circumstances, the King’s voice struck with such a peculiar languor upon Gamaliel’s ear, that it acted like a sedative upon his nerves. There never was a better illustration of the force of example upon a weak mind. Had the King and his companions ranted and raved, and called for their cloaks and their horses, the landlord would inevitably have fallen upon his knees and craved forgiveness of them. Yet, startled as they were, since they still retained the composure of good breeding, and the young King, probably with some little bravado, heightened his natural diffidence because his own safety was involved, the landlord was acted upon powerfully by their demeanour. Their composure did much to soothe his agitation. In any case, had they but known it, he was entirely at their mercy; to be swayed by them, at that instant, backwards and forwards like a reed in the wind. They chose to go backwards; involuntarily the landlord, with no longer the least control over his faculties, went backwards too. “What is this you say, landlord?” asked the calm voice of the King. “I--I think the soldiers are coming, your Majesty,” said the trembling landlord. “You think they are coming,” said the King. “Why should you think they are coming, landlord?” There was the least tinge of amusement now added to the languor of the King’s tone. He pushed the traditional demeanour of a monarch, which had been in his family for generations, a point too far. Unconsciously, he was sealing his own fate by the unnatural tranquillity of his bearing. Slowly but surely his example was inciting the irresolute landlord to a better possession of himself.