Borla turned to face the audience, and cleared his throat loudly.
"Ahem! His Majesty the Emperor Euphrates, is off-ended," said Borla as
he turned significantly to Ampho, the Royal Crier.
"Eh? What was that?" asked the latter, starting upright as if he had
been lost in a daze.
Ampho, the Royal Crier, beaked of nose and as thin as a reed, blinked
in a rapid fluttering of his rheumy, myopic eyes as if he were suddenly
roused out of a deep trance, and perked up his ears anew as he finally
managed to take his eyes off the quacking old crone. He raised his
bushy eyebrows and turned his hoary-haired and white-bearded
countenance in an aside to Borla as he raised his bushy eyebrows
alertly.
"Say again?" repeated Ampho.
The Royal Crier's occasional impudence was tolerated by Borla because
he always managed to put on quite a show, and also because the Emperor
Euphrates was so fond of the old ditherer, who was endeared to his
majesty by virtue of having been old and gray-haired at such a time as
his Imperial Majesty was still playing naked in the royal mud.
Betraying ill-concealed impatience, Borla repeated himself.
At this, Ampho, raised his voice and replied quickly with an air of
self-importance and officiousness, "Ahem! As his Highness wishes!"
Then he raised and settled his shoulders bravely as he opened his
mouth, screwed his eyes shut tightly, tilted his head back, and bawled
loudly into the high vaulted stone ceiling, "All keep silence before
the great Emperor Euphrates!"
A chorus of Court Officers immediately chanted, "All give ear and keep
silence!"
In the sudden silence, the widows shifted their eyes nervously around
the crowded court, fearful of the awesome power of the great Emperor
Euphrates that so many should automatically kowtow to him with such
unfailing ritual precision.
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