But that laugh never left them; a sudden impulse, a mysterious wave of feeling choked it in their throats.

A sense of the strangeness of the contrast between themselves in their armed multitudes and this one white-robed man in his loneliness took hold of them, and with it another sense of something not far removed from fear.
"A wizard indeed," they thought in their hearts, and what they thought the king uttered.
"I perceive," he said, "that you are either mad, White Man, or you are a prince of wizards.

Mad you do not seem to be, for your eyes are calm, therefore a wizard you must be.

Well, stand behind me: by-and-by I will hear your message and ask of you to show me your powers; but before then there are things which I must do.

Are the lads ready?
Ho, you, loose the bull!" At the command a line of soldiers moved from the right, forming itself up in front of the king and his attendants, revealing a number of youths, of from sixteen to seventeen years of age, armed with sticks only, who stood in companies outside a massive gate.