Beside them, but not upon the dark red daīs, sat the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes, a fine looking and benevolent prelate, in white robes edged with a purple pattern of quaint intricacies: he wore a wreath of mistletoe about his broad forehead; and around and above this played a pulsing radiancy. To these persons Florian told what had happened. When he had ended, the Queen said she had never heard of such a thing in her life, that it was precisely what she had predicted time and again, and that now Helmas could see for himself what came of spoiling Mélusine, and letting her have her own way about everything. The wise King answered nothing whatever. But the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes asked, “And how did you lift this strong enchantment?” “Monsieur, I removed it by the logical method of killing the seven monsters who were its strength and symbol. That they are all quite dead you can see for yourself,—if I may make so bold as to employ her Majesty’s striking phrase,—by counting the assortment of heads which I fetched hither with me.” “Yes, to be sure,” the priest admitted. “Seven is seven the world over: everywhere it is a number of mystic potency. It follows that seven severed heads must predicate seven corpses; and such proofs are indisputable, as far as they go—” Still, he seemed troubled in his mind. Then Helmas, the wise King, said, “It is my opinion that the one way to encounter the unalterable is to do nothing about it.” “Yes,” answered his wife, “and much that will help matters!” “Nothing, my dear,” said the wise King, “helps matters. All matters are controlled by fate and chance, and these help themselves to what they have need of. These two it is that have taken from me a lordship that had not its like in the known world, and have made the palaces that we used to be feasting in, it still seems only yesterday, just little piles of rubbish, and have puffed out my famousness the way that when any man gets impudent a widow does a lamp. These two it is that leave me nothing but this castle and this crevice in the hills where the old time yet lingers. And I accept their sending, because there is no armor against it, but I shall keep up my dignity by not letting even fate and chance upset me with their playfulness. Here the old time shall be as it has always been, and here I shall continue to do what was expected of me yesterday. And about other matters I shall not bother, but I shall leave everything, excepting only my self-respect, to fate and chance. And I think that Hoprig will agree with me it is the way a wise man ought to be acting.” “Hoprig!” reflected Florian, looking at the halo. “But what the devil is my patron saint doing here disguised as the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes?”