Produced by Edward A. Malone.
by
Frank R. Stockton
In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas,though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness ofdistant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, asbecame the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberantfancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will,he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given toself-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, thething was done. When every member of his domestic and politicalsystems moved smoothly in its appointed course, his nature was blandand genial; but, whenever there was a little hitch, and some of hisorbs got out of their orbits, he was blander and more genial still, fornothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight and crushdown uneven places.
Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semifiedwas that of the public arena, in which, by exhibitions of manly andbeastly valor, the minds of his subjects were refined and cultured.
But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself. Thearena of the king was built, not to give the people an opportunity ofhearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to enable them to viewthe inevitable conclusion of a conflict between religious opinions andhungry jaws, but for purposes far better adapted to widen and developthe mental energies of the people. This vast amphitheater, with itsencircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages,was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtuerewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance.
When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient importance tointerest the king, public notice was given that on an appointed day thefate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, astructure which well deserved its name, for, although its form and planwere borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain ofthis man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which heowed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on everyadopted form of human thought and action the rich growth of hisbarbaric idealism.
When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and the king,surrounded by his court, sat high up on his throne of royal state onone side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door beneath him opened, andthe accused subject stepped out into the amphitheater. Directlyopposite him, on the other side of the inclosed space, were two doors,exactly alike and side by side. It was the duty and the privilege ofthe person on trial to walk directly to these doors and open one ofthem. He could open either door he pleased; he was subject to noguidance or influence but that of the aforementioned impartial andincorruptible chance. If he opened the one, there came out of it ahungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, whichimmediately sprang upon him and tore him to pieces as a punishment forhis guilt. The moment that the case of the criminal was thus decided,doleful iron bells were clanged, great wails went up from the hiredmourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience,with bowed heads and downcast hearts, wended slowly their homeward way,mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected,should have merited so dire a fate.
But, if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth fromit a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his majestycould