I set forty-seven prisoners loose out of those awful
rat-holes, and left only one in captivity. He was a
lord, and had killed another lord, a sort of kinsman of
the queen. That other lord had ambushed him to
assassinate him, but this fellow had got the best of him
and cut his throat. However, it was not for that that
I left him jailed, but for maliciously destroying the
only public well in one of his wretched villages. The
queen was bound to hang him for killing her kinsman,
but I would not allow it: it was no crime to kill an
assassin. But I said I was willing to let her hang him
for destroying the well; so she concluded to put up
with that, as it was better than nothing.