were annoying to the Emperor. He dispatched a messenger to discover the reason for them. The labourers sent back word that the gun was too heavy for their strength and asked that they might be assisted by a hundred more men.
Commanding them brought into the royal presence, the Emperor ordered them to fall into line. Then he directed every fourth fellow to fall out. These were shot. He quietly informed the remaining seventy-five that he expected the cannon to be in its place before he had finished his luncheon.
Little progress was made. Two hours later they assured him that the task was impossible.
The Emperor laughed. Fall in, he commanded. . . . Every third man out. Guards, fire!
Now, he informed the cowering wretches, I will order every second man out next time. If the gun was too heavy for a hundred men, surely fifty will find it light.
They did.
On another occasion he grew cold to a former favourite. Strolling to the edge of the cliff with the fellow, he talked softly to him. Standing over the abyss, he bade the man leap. Reading no mercy in the Emperor's eyes, reading rather the horrible alternatives that awaited his refusal, he obeyed. By some chance the branch of a tree some twenty feet below broke his fall. With broken arm, his face bruised and bloody, he crept back to his master.
Sire, he said, I have done your bidding.
