530 ANNALS OF ROGER XlE HOVEDEN. A.D* 1185. all made answer, " It pleases us that he should be our lord, and that he should reign over us, and that we should expel this perfidious Androneus, who is destroying us and our nation." Upon this, the patriarch consented to the wishes of the people, for he too had the same desire, and forthwith consecrated him emperor : after which, having celebrated mass and performed all things with due solemnity, the patriarch took him to his own house, and made a great entertainment for the chief men and tribunes of the city (for it was a festival), to which a multitude of the people and of the elders resorted. In the meantime, the emperor Androneus had come forth from his palace that he might see the end of Isaac Angelus, for the purpose of arresting whom he had sent his chancellor ; but, on hearing that the chancellor was slain and that Isaac Angelus had been proclaimed emperor, he returned to hie palace, and the gate was shut. On this, the new emperor came with a great multitude of armed people and laid siege to the palace of Androneus. Suddenly, there came a great black raven, of sinister appearance, which, sitting upon a wall of the palace, right opposite to the emperor Androneus, sent forth at him an unceasing and ill-boding cawing; upon which, conjecturing that this was an omen of his downfall and ruin, he seized his bow and drew it, but when he attempted to aim an arrow at it, the bow broke : on which, being greatly enraged, he threw it at his feet, saying, " Now I know of a truth that the day of my ruin is hastening on, and that the anger of God has fallen upon me." While he was still speaking, the followers of the new emperor scaled the walls of the palace and took the emperor Androneus prisoner, and after binding him, delivered him up, to the new emperor ; who said to him, " Now, through the righteous judgment of God, have your sins overtaken you, by which you have deserved His anger, in oppressing the' innocent, and slaying your lord, the emperor Alexis, and blinding my father and my brothers, and other nobles of the kingdom ; therefore you shall die by the most shocking of deaths;" after which he delivered him to the torturers, saying, " Take and scourge him through the streets and lanes of the city, and you are at liberty to put out one of his eyes, and to cut off one ear, one hand, and one foot. You must, however, preserve his life and lus other limbs for greater torments."