Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/518

344, when he sayd thus: Dabo vobis terram fluentem lacte et melle; that is to say, I shall give you land flowing with mylk and hony. And than this rych man dyd these men drinke a maner of drinke, of which they were dronken, and he sayd to them, if they wold dye for his sake, when they were dead, they shold come to his paradise, and they should be of the age of those maydens, and shold dwell alway with them, and he shold put them in a fayrer paradise where they should se god in joy, and in his maiesty; and then they graunted to do that he wold, and he bade them go and sleay such a lord, or a man of the countrey that he was wroth with, and that they shold haue no dread of no man. And if they were slaine themselfe for his sake, he sholde put them in his paradise when they were dead. And so went these bachelors to sleay great lords of the countrey, and were slain themselfe in hope to have that paradise, and thus he was avenged of his enemies thro his desert, and when rich men of the countrey perceived this cautell and malice, and the will of this Cotolonapes, they gathered them together and assayled the castel and slew hym and destroyed all his goods and his faire places and riches that were in his paradise; and the place cf the walls is there yet, and some other things, but the riches