At the back of it he dropped him into the dust hole among the remnants of a library whose age had destroyed its value in the eyes of the chapter.

They found him burrowing in it, a lunatic henceforth--whose madness presented the peculiar feature, that in its paroxysms he jabbered sense.
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.