'This is the very word of God,' and began to read from the pages of his
Bible. He read first the story of David and Saul, his great voice
trembling with ecstasy.
'This David is our King,' he said. 'This Saul that he slew is the Beast
of Rome. The Solomon that cometh after shall be the gracious princeling
that ye wot of, for already he is wise beyond his years and beyond most
grown men.'
The citizens around the walls cried 'Amen.' And because the strangers
tarried to come, he called to his journeymen that stood in the inner
doorway to bring him the sheets of the Bible whereon he had printed the
story of Ehud and Eglon.
'This king that ye shall hear of as being slain,' he cried out, 'is that
foul bird the Kaiser Carl, that harries the faithful in Almain. This
good man that shall slay him is some German lord. Who he shall be we
know not yet; maybe it shall be this very stranger that to-night shall
sit to hear us.'
His brethren muttered a low, deep, and uniform prayer that soon, soon
the Lord should send them this boon.
But he had not got beyond the eleventh verse of this history before
there came from without a sound of trumpets, and through the windows the
light of torches and the scarlet of the guard that, it was said, the
King had sent to do honour to this stranger.
'Come in, be ye who ye may!' the printer cried to the knockers at his
door.
There entered the hugest masked man that they ever had seen. All in
black he was, and horrifying and portentous he strode in. His sleeves
and shoulders were ballooned after the German fashion, his sword clanked
on the tiles. He was a vision of black, for his mask that appeared as
big as another man's garment covered all his face, though they could see
he had a grey beard when sitting down. He gazed at the fire askance.