Bone-freezing horror pervaded Gwyntystorm. If their best and
wisest were treated with such contempt, what might not the rest of
them look for? Alas for their city! Their grandly respectable
city! Their loftily reasonable city! Where it was all to end, who
could tell!
But something must be done. Hastily assembling, the priests chose
a new first priest, and in full conclave unanimously declared and
accepted that the king in his retirement had, through the practice
of the blackest magic, turned the palace into a nest of demons in
the midst of them. A grand exorcism was therefore indispensable.
In the meantime the fact came out that the greater part of the
courtiers had been dismissed as well as the servants, and this fact
swelled the hope of the Party of Decency, as they called
themselves. Upon it they proceeded to act, and strengthened
themselves on all sides.
The action of the king's bodyguard remained for a time uncertain.
But when at length its officers were satisfied that both the master
of the horse and their colonel were missing, they placed themselves
under the orders of the first priest.
Every one dated the culmination of the evil from the visit of the
miner and his mongrel; and the butchers vowed, if they could but
get hold of them again, they would roast both of them alive. At
once they formed themselves into a regiment, and put their dogs in
training for attack.
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