“I shall not stir from hence!” cried the king.

“If you are obstinate, my dear young friend,” replied the taller of the two, “I will lift you up in my arms, and roll you up in your own cloak, and if you should happen to be stifled, why — so much the worse for you.”

As he said this, he disengaged from beneath his cloak a hand of which Milo of Crotona would have envied him the possession, on the day when he had that unhappy idea of rending his last oak.

The king dreaded violence, for he could well believe that the two men into whose power he had fallen had not gone so far with any idea of drawing back, and that they would consequently be ready to proceed to extremities, if necessary. He shook his head and said: