"Open thy mouth," said the Angel sternly.
"My mouth I will not open," replied Talisso.
Thereupon the Angel caught him by the hair, and plucked his head
backward till his throat made a knotted white ridge above the neck, and
as Talisso opened his mouth, shrieking blasphemies and laughing with
frantic rage, the Angel filled it with dust.
Talisso fell backwards, thrusting with his feet and thrashing the
ground with his hands; his crown fell from his head and rolled away;
his face grew set and white; and then he lay straight and rigid.
"Hast thou filled his mouth?"
"His mouth, Lord, is filled," the Angel answered.
This was the dream of Desiderius.
When citizens came running to the palace, and the Archbishop learned
how the gates had been surprised and the castle taken, he lost no time
in casting about what he should do. He sent messengers to summon the
Council of the Elders, and bade his men-at-arms fall into array. Then
he hastened to the High Church, and, after a brief prayer before the
altar, girt on the great sword of St. Victor, threw over his purple
cassock the white mantle of the Saint, and putting on his head a winged
helm of iron, made his way to the castle where Talisso awaited his
capture.
"Stay you here," he said to his men-at-arms when they reached the
portals, "and if by God's blessing work fall to your hands to do, do it
doughtily and with right good will."
Up the high hall of the castle, through the groups of lounging Avars he
went, with great strides and eyes burning, to the dais where Talisso
sat apart in the royal chair.
"Ha! well met, Lord Archbishop," cried the dethroned King, springing to
his feet at the sight of him.
"Well met, Talisso," replied Desiderius in a loud voice. "With no more
ado I now tell thee that for thee there is but one end. Thy mouth must
be filled with dust."
As he spoke, Desiderius flung back his mantle and drew the holy sword.
Heaving it aloft he struck mightily at Talisso. From the King's helmet
glanced the keen brand, and descending to the shoulder shore away the
plates of iron, and bit the flesh.
Once more the great sword was swung up, for Desiderius neither heard
nor heeded the cry and rush of the Avars; but or ever the stroke could
fall Desiderius saw the Angel of Essalona by his side and felt his hand
restraining the blade; and at the same instant the figure before him,
the figure of the King Orgulous, grew dim and hazy, and wavered, and
broke like smur blown along a wooded hillside, and vanished from his
gaze.
"A little truer stroke," said the Angel, "and thou hadst slain thyself,
for of a truth the man thou wast slaying was none other than thyself;
as it is, thou art hurt more than need was"--for the shoulder of the
Archbishop was bare, and the blood streamed from it.
Bewildered at these words, Desiderius gazed about to see if the high
hall and the Avars were but the imagery of a dream. But there in front
of him stood the dwarfish tribe, with naked brands and battle-axes.
These, when they looked on his face, raised a hoarse cry of terror, for
they too had beheld Talisso, how at a blow of the magic sword he had
fallen and perished even from the vision of men, and now they saw that
he who had slain the King was himself the King. Howling and
clamouring, they broke from the hall and fled into the street; and
there the men-at-arms did right willingly and doughtily the work which
thus came to their hands. Of that fierce and uncouth robber horde,
which rode to Sarras two hundred strong, scarce two score saw Danube
water again.
When Desiderius knew for a surety that the natural man within him was
verily that King wicked and orgulous, and understood that the sins of
that evil King were the sins he himself would have committed but for
the saving grace of God, a great awe fell upon him, and he was abashed
with a grievous dread lest the King Orgulous were not really dead and
done with, but were sleeping still, like the Kings of old legend, in
some dusky cavern of his nature, ready to awake and break forth with
sword and fire. Gladly would he have withdrawn to the solitude of the
little convent on the beetling crag, far from the temptations of power
and the splendour and tumult of life; but the same answer was given to
him now as had been given to him of old: "One of thy vows was entire
obedience, and the grace of God is sufficient for thee."