Page:If I Were King (1901).pdf/147

 of the man whom he believed to be the Grand Constable of France. With piteous gesticulations and trembling fingers, the red, gross man knelt and attempted to plead for mercy. Villon eyed him sternly though he found it hard to restrain his laughter.

"You come with clean hands?" he asked, and Guy, answered, babbling, his words tumbling from him, incoherent and confused, holding out his huge paws like a schoolboy reproved for want of soap and water:

"As decent a lad, my lord, as ever kept body and soul together by walking on the straight and narrow path that leads to—"

He had stuttered thus far when Villon interrupted him.

"The gallows, Master Tabarie."

Guy's bulk quivered in piteous negation.

"No, no; I have the fear of God in me as strong as any man in Paris."

Villon leaned over a little nearer to his victim and breathed a question into his ear:

"Do you know the Church of St. Maturin, Master Tabarie?"

The little pig-like eyes of Tabarie widened in surprise and he stammered a "No, my lord," that was