Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/140

 "Shall it be secret?" said the first rogue. "I will tell thee then in few words what we shall do, and I will bring it about."

"I make thee my vow," quoth the other, "by my truth, that I will not betray thee."

"Now," quoth the first, "thou wotst well that we be twain, and two of us shall be stronger than one. Watch when he shall be set down, and right anon rise up as though thou wouldst scuffle with him; and whiles that thou strugglest with him as in sport, I shall rive him through his two sides, and thou, with thy dagger, look thou do the same; and then shall all this gold be divided, my dear friend, betwixt me and thee. Then may we both fulfil all our pleasures, and play at dice right as we list." And thus be these two rogues accorded to slay the third, as ye have heard me tell.

The youngest—he that went to the village—full oft he rolleth up and down in his heart the beauty of those bright, new florins. "O Lord," quoth he, "if so I might have all this treasure to myself, there is no man that liveth under the throne of God should live so merry as I!" And at last the fiend, our foe, put it into his thought that he should buy poison, with which to slay his two companions. For the fiend had found him in such bad living that he had leave to bring him to perdition; for this rogue's design was utterly this, to slay his fellows both and never to repent.

No longer then he delayeth, but forth he goeth into the town unto an apothecary, and prayed him that he would sell him poison wherewith he might kill his rats; and eke in his yard there was a polecat, that (as he said) had slaughtered his capons; and fain, if he might, would he avenge him on the vermin that despoiled him by night. The apothecary answered: "Here thou