They had accompanied him from the far lands in which, according to rumour, he had for many years fixed his home.
But they could communicate nothing to gratify curiosity or justify suspicion.

They spoke no language but their own.

With the exception of these two his princely retinue was composed of the native hirelings of the city, whom his lavish but imperious generosity made the implicit creatures of his will.

In his house, and in his habits, so far as they were seen, there was nothing to account for the rumours which were circulated abroad.

He was not, as we are told of Albertus Magnus or the great Leonardo da Vinci, served by airy forms; and no brazen image, the invention of magic mechanism, communicated to him the influences of the stars.