discharge of thy duty, since virtue, as the schoolmen say, is its own reward. But away, and prepare the priests, for the victim approaches.'
'Would you have it done in your own presence, my gracious liege?' said Tristan.
Louis declined this offer; but charged the Provost-Marshal to have every thing ready for the punctual execution of his commands the moment the Astrologer left his apartment; 'for,' said the King, 'I will see the villain once more, just to observe how he bears himself towards the master whom he has led into the toils. I shall love to see the sense of approaching death strike the colour from that ruddy cheek, and dim that eye which laughed as it lied. – O, that there were but another with him, whose counsels aided his prognostications! But if I survive this – look to your scarlet, my Lord Cardinal! for Rome shall scarce protect you – be it spoken under favour of Saint Peter and the blessed Lady of Clery, who is all over mercy. – Why do you tarry? Go get your grooms ready. I expect the villain instantly. I pray to Heaven he take not fear and come not! – that were indeed a baulk. Begone, Tristan – thou wert not wont to be so slow when business was to be done.'
'On the contrary, an it like your Majesty, you were ever wont to say that I was too fast, and mistook your purpose, and did the job on the wrong subject. Now, please your Majesty to give me a sign, just when you part with Galeotti for the night, whether the business goes on or no. I have known your Majesty once or twice change your mind, and blame me for over-dispatch.[51]'
'Thou suspicious creature,' answered King Louis, 'I tell thee I will not change my mind; – but to silence thy remonstrances, observe, if I say to the knave at parting, 'There is a Heaven above us!' then let the business go on; but if I say, 'Go in peace,' you will understand that my purpose is altered.'
'My head is somewhat of the dullest out of my own department,' said Tristan' l'Hermite. 'Stay, let me rehearse – If you bid him depart in peace, I am to have him dealt upon?'
'No, no – idiot, no!' said the King; 'in that case you let him pass free. But if I say, 'There is a Heaven above us!' up with him a yard or two nearer the planets he is so conversant with.'
'I wish we may have the means here,' said the Provost.
'Then up with him or down with him, it matters not which,' answered the King, grimly smiling.
'And the body,' said the Provost, 'how shall we dispose of it?'
'Let me see an instant,' said the King – 'the windows of the hall are too narrow; but that projecting oriel is wide enough. We will over with him into the Somme, and put a paper on his breast, with the legend, 'Let the justice of the King pass toll-free.' The Duke's officers may seize it for duties if they dare.'
The Provost-Marshal left the apartment of Louis, and summoned his two assistants to council in an embrasure in the great hall, where Trois-Eschelles stuck a torch against the wall to give them light. They discoursed in whispers, little noticed by Oliver le Dain, who seemed sunk in dejection, and Le Balafre, who was fast asleep.
'Comrades,' said the Provost to his executioners, 'perhaps you have thought that our vocation was over, or that, at least, we were more likely to be the subjects of the duty of others, than to have any more to discharge on our own parts. But courage, my mates! our gracious master has reserved for us one noble cast of our office, and it must be gallantly executed, as by men who would live in history.'
'Ay, I guess how it is,' said Trois-Eschelles; 'our patron is like the old Kaisars of Rome, who, when things came to an extremity, or, as we would say, to the ladder foot with them, were wont to select from their own ministers of justice some experienced person, who might spare their sacred persons from the awkward attempts of a novice or blunderer in our mystery. It was a pretty custom for Ethnics; but, as a good catholic, I should make some scruple at laying hands on the Most Christian King.'
'Nay, but, brother, you are ever too scrupulous,' said Petit-Andre. 'If he issues word and warrant for his own execution, I see not how we can in duty dispute it. He that dwells at Rome must obey the Pope – the Marshal's-men must do their master's bidding, and he the King's.'
'Hush, you knaves!' said the Provost-Marshal, 'there is here no purpose concerning the King's person, but only that of the Greek heretic pagan and Mahomedan wizard, Martius Galeotti.'
'Galeotti!' answered Petit-Andre; 'that comes quite natural. I never knew one of these legerdemain fellows, who pass their life, as one may say, in dancing upon a tight rope, but what they came at length to caper at the end of one – tchick!'
'My only concern is,' said Trois-Eschelles, looking upwards, 'that the poor creature must die without confession.'
'Tush! tush!' said the Provost-Marshal, in reply, 'he is a rank heretic and necromancer – a whole college of priests could not absolve him from the doom he has deserved. Besides, if he hath a fancy that way, thou hast a gift, Trois-Eschelles, to serve him for ghostly father thyself. But, what is more material, I fear you must use your poniards, my mates; for you have not here the fitting conveniences for the exercise of your profession.'
'Now, our Lady of the Isle of Paris forbid,' said Trois-Eschelles, 'that the King's command should find me destitute of my tools! I always wear around my body Saint Francis's cord, doubled four times, with a handsome loop at the further end of it; for I am of the company of Saint Francis, and may wear his cowl when I am in extremis – I thank God and the good fathers of Saumur.'
'And for me,' said Petit-Andre, 'I have always in my budget a handy block and sheaf, or a pulley as they call it, with a strong screw for securing it where I list, in case we should travel where trees are scarce, or high- branched from the ground. I have found it a great convenience.'
'That will suit as well,' said the Provost-Marshal; 'you have but to screw your pulley into yonder beam above the door, and pass the rope over it. I will keep the fellow in some conversation near the spot until you adjust the noose under his chin, and then' –
'And then we run up the rope,' said Petit-Andre, 'and, tchick! our Astrologer is so far in Heaven, that he hath not a foot on earth.'
'But these gentlemen,' said Trois-Eschelles, looking towards the chimney, 'do not these help, and so take a handsel of our vocation?'
'Hem! no,' answered the Provost; 'the barber only contrives mischief, which he leaves other men to execute; and for the Scot, he keeps the door when the deed is a-doing, which he hath not spirit or quickness sufficient to partake in more actively – every one to his trade.'
With infinite dexterity, and even a sort of professional delight which sweetened the sense of their own precarious situation, the worthy executioners of the Provost's mandates adapted their rope and pulley for putting in force the sentence which had been uttered against Galeotti by the captive Monarch – seeming to rejoice that that last action was to be one so consistent with their past life. Tristan l'Hermite sat eyeing their proceedings with a species of satisfaction; while Oliver paid no attention to them whatever; and Ludovic Lesly, if, awaked by the bustle, he looked upon them at all, considered them as engaged in matters entirely unconnected with his own duty, and for which he was not to be regarded as responsible in one way or other.[52]
CHAPTER XII. RECRIMINATION.
Thy time is not yet out – the devil thou servest
Has not as yet deserted thee. He aids
The friends who drudge for him, as the blind man
Was aided by the guide, who lent his shoulder
O'er rough and smooth, until he reach'd the brink
Of the fell precipice – then hurl'd him downward.
When obeying the command, or rather the request, of Louis, – for he was in circumstances in which, though a monarch, he could only request Le Glorieux to go in search of Martius Galeotti, – the jester had no trouble in executing his commission, betaking himself at once to the best tavern in Peronne, of which he himself was rather more than an occasional frequenter, being a great admirer of that species of liquor which reduced all
