Read "The King of the Mountains" by Edmond About online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The King contemplated his vengeance, as a man who has fasted three days contemplates a bountiful repast. He examined, one by one, all the dishes, I mean to say all the tortures; he licked his dry lips, but he knew not where to commence nor what to choose. One would have said that excess of hunger spoiled his appetite. He struck his head with his fist, as if he could force out some ideas, but they came so rapidly that it was not easy to seize one in its passage. "Speak! " he cried to his subjects. "Advise me! What good are you, if you are not able to give me advice? Shall I await the coming of the Corfuan, or until Vasile shall speak from the depths of his tomb? Find for me, beasts that you are, some torture for the loss of 80,000 francs."
The young pipe-bearer said to his master: "An idea strikes me. Thou hast one officer dead, another absent, and a third wounded. Put up their places for competition. Promise us that those who shall tell of the best way to avenge thee, shall succeed Sophocles, the Corfuan, and Vasile."