The afternoon was ushered in by a long procession of girls and youths: the girls carrying little pots wherein grew wheat, cornflowers and poppies. They passed in Indian file before the Cathedral, and each fair girl that passed broke her pot against the door, in front of whose dinted panels soon grew up a little mountain of sherds, and earth, and fading flowers and corn. Then they passed down to the riverside, and the King followed them in state. There they found themselves face to face with the young men of Alsander, many of them in that gorgeous national costume of which Arnolfo was so fond, who had left them at the Cathedral door and had run round the bridge and were already facing them on the opposite bank. The youths threw off boots and socks, if they were wearing them, and coats, if they possessed them: neither did the girls fear to display their shapely feet: men and maidens entered the stream, the men valiantly, the maids demurely, and then, dipping their hands in the water, they began splashing each other vigorously across the river. When all were soaked with water many of the men swam over, seized a girl and ducked her in the stream: this was held to be a most solemn betrothal. For in the meantime the priests and the Cathedral choir had assembled on the bridge and young voices began to raise the old Latin hymn of the Consecration of the Waters, a hymn older than the Cathedral of Alsander itself, one of the oldest hymns in the world. Swiftly the tumult was stilled, and all knelt by the shore. Raised on a platform behind the priests stood the tall King: he did not seem to share the joy of all the others, and while they knelt he shaded his eyes, but not for prayer, The first excitement of his adventure had passed: seeing now all around him in the clear and truthful sunlight this mock revel given in his honour and in honour of a lie, he felt a thief and a liar. There was no thrill of triumph in his heart for his achievement. His fellow conspirators had taken him into their farce as one might take a spectator from the stalls and dress him up for the role of King. In the farce nothing mattered--honour or right or manhood. Now here was reality to face him: he was a King, and an impostor. The amazing Arnolfo, whose fantasy and youth had given some poetry to the crude conspiracy, had deserted him. Women, and the fair woman he had seen in the light of morning--was it a thousand years ago?--were lost to him for ever. As amid the joyous sunshine of that first morning when he saw Alsander rise up above her meadows, when, afraid of the world's too deadly beauty, he had felt more lonely than ever in his life before, so now when he had achieved this marvellous thing, now that he ruled the ancient, fair and fabled city, he sank into utter desolation of the soul. And this time no golden girl would chase the black phantom of sorrow from his soul.