incessant was the talk, innumerable were the suggestions, and great
was the deliberation. The general consent, however, was that as
soon as the priests should have expelled the demons, they would
depose the king, and attired in all his regal insignia, shut him in
a cage for public show; then choose governors, with the lord
chancellor at their head, whose first duty should be to remit every
possible tax; and the magistrates, by the mouth of the city
marshal, required all able-bodied citizens, in order to do their
part toward the carrying out of these and a multitude of other
reforms, to be ready to take arms at the first summons.
Things needful were prepared as speedily as possible, and a mighty
ceremony, in the temple, in the market place, and in front of the
palace, was performed for the expulsion of the demons. This over,
the leaders retired to arrange an attack upon the palace.
But that night events occurred which, proving the failure of their
first, induced the abandonment of their second, intent. Certain of
the prowling order of the community, whose numbers had of late been
steadily on the increase, reported frightful things. Demons of
indescribable ugliness had been espied careering through the
midnight streets and courts. A citizen - some said in the very act
of housebreaking, but no one cared to look into trifles at such a
crisis - had been seized from behind, he could not see by what, and
soused in the river.
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