Then Mary spoke to the kings as sweetly as she had addressed the shepherds, and presently they withdrew a little from her presence and began to discuss their homeward journey. Gaspar declared that according to their promise they must return through Herod’s land; and though the others agreed, they were all so fatigued that they decided to lie down and rest awhile. Accordingly, at a distance from the manger, they threw themselves on the ground. Before long they slept, and while they slept, a beautiful vision appeared to them. An angel, who seemed to be hovering in the air, descended from the darkness of the stable-roof, and bent still hovering above them. “Is he _really_ flying?” exclaimed Margery, in an awed voice; and Master Gyseburn smiled. “It looks as though he were, certainly,” he agreed; “but there’s a clever contrivance arranged by the carpenters and fastened to the roof up there, by which the angel is let down and made to look as though he were fluttering in the air.” “He is _lovely_!” declared Margery, sighing with pleasure. “Look at his golden curls and his long wings! What is he going to say to the kings?” “Listen!” Colin advised her. “King of Tarsus, Sir Gaspar!” (exclaimed the angel) “King of Araby, Sir Balthazar! Melchior, King of Aginara! To you now I am sent. For dread of Herod, go you west home ... The Holy Ghost this knowledge hath sent.” Then, bending a moment longer over the still sleeping kings, he flew upwards and was lost to sight. When the kings awoke, it was to discover that each one of them had heard the angel’s warning; so taking a last leave of the Babe and His Mother, they set out on their journey, carefully arranging not to pass through the dominions of the wicked and treacherous Herod. Meanwhile, the herald, in fear and trembling, once more ascended the steps leading to the palace-portal, and broke the news to his master: “These three kings that forth were sent, And should have come again before thee here present, Another way, Lord, home they went, Contrary to thine honour.” Then indeed the audience had an opportunity of watching Herod’s rage: “Another way!” (he exclaimed, trembling with fury) “Out! Out! Out! Hath those foul traitors done me this deed? I stamp, I stare, I look all about; Might them I take I should them burn at a glede [fire]. I rend, I roar, and now run I wood [mad] ... They shall be hanged if I come them to.” Roaring and stamping and raving, as he said of himself, the king rushed down the pageant steps and “raged” in the market-place amongst the people, to the delight of the grown-up folk and the terror of the children in the crowd. And all the while he was running to-and-fro, screaming with fury, he was giving orders that “all young children” should be slain.