"With all my heart," quoth Thevenin.

"Is there any more in that bottle?" asked the monk.
"Open another," said Villon. "How do you ever hope to fill that

big hogshead, your body, with little things like bottles? And how
do you expect to get to heaven? How many angels, do you fancy, can

be spared to carry up a single monk from Picardy? Or do you think
yourself another Elias - and they'll send the coach for you?"

"HOMINIBUS IMPOSSIBILE," replied the monk, as he filled his glass.
Tabary was in ecstasies.

Villon filliped his nose again.
"Laugh at my jokes, if you like," he said.

"It was very good," objected Tabary.
Villon made a face at him. "Think of rhymes to 'fish'," he said.

"What have you to do with Latin? You'll wish you knew none of it
at the great assizes, when the devil calls for Guido Tabary,

clericus - the devil with the hump-back and red-hot finger-nails.
Talking of the devil," he added in a whisper, "look at Montigny!"

All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not seem to be
enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a side; one nostril

nearly shut, and the other much inflated. The black dog was on his
back, as people say, in terrifying nursery metaphor; and he

breathed hard under the gruesome burden.
"He looks as if he could knife him," whispered Tabary, with round

eyes.
The monk shuddered, and turned his face and spread his open hands

to the red embers. It was the cold that thus affected Dom Nicolas,
and not any excess of moral sensibility

"Come now," said Villon - "about this ballade. How does it run so
far?" And beating time with his hand, he read it aloud to Tabary.

They were interrupted at the fourth rhyme by a brief and fatal
movement among the gamesters. The round was completed, and

Thevenin was just opening his mouth to claim another victory, when
Montigny leaped up, swift as an adder, and stabbed him to the

heart. The blow took effect before he had time to utter a cry,
before he had time to move. A tremor or two convulsed his frame;

his hands opened and shut, his heels rattled on the floor; then his
head rolled backward over one shoulder with the eyes wide open; and

Thevenin Pensete's spirit had returned to Him who made it.
Everyone sprang to his feet; but the business was over in two twos.

The four living fellows looked at each other in rather a ghastly
fashion; the dead man contemplating a corner of the roof with a

singular and ugly leer.
"My God!" said Tabary; and he began to pray in Latin.

Villon broke out into hystericallaughter. He came a step forward
and ducked a ridiculous bow at Thevenin, and laughed still louder.

Then he sat down suddenly, all of a heap, upon a stool, and
continued laughing bitterly as though he would shake himself to

pieces.
Montigny recovered his composure first.

"Let's see what he has about him," he remarked; and he picked the
dead man's pockets with a practised hand, and divided the money

into four equal portions on the table. "There's for you," he said.
The monk received his share with a deep sigh, and a single stealthy

glance at the dead Thevenin, who was beginning to sink into himself
and topple sideways of the chair.

"We're all in for it," cried Villon, swallowing his mirth. "It's a
hanging job for every man jack of us that's here - not to speak of

those who aren't." He made a shockinggesture in the air with his
raised right hand, and put out his tongue and threw his head on one

side, so as to counterfeit the appearance of one who has been
hanged. Then he pocketed his share of the spoil, and executed a

shuffle with his feet as if to restore the circulation.
Tabary was the last to help himself; he made a dash at the money,

and retired to the other end of the apartment.
Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair, and drew out the

dagger, which was followed by a jet of blood.
"You fellows had better be moving," he said, as he wiped the blade

on his victim's doublet.
"I think we had," returned Villon with a gulp. "Damn his fat

head!" he broke out. "It sticks in my throat like phlegm. What
right has a man to have red hair when he is dead?" And he fell all

of a heap again upon the stool, and fairly covered his face with
his hands.

Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even Tabary feebly chiming
in.

"Cry baby," said the monk.
"I always said he was a woman," added Montigny with a sneer. "Sit

up, can't you?" he went on, giving another shake to the murdered
body. "Tread out that fire, Nick!"

But Nick was better employed; he was quietly taking Villon's purse,
as the poet sat, limp and trembling, on the stool where he had been

making a ballade not three minutes before. Montigny and Tabary
dumbly demanded a share of the booty, which the monk silently

promised as he passed the little bag into the bosom of his gown.
In many ways an artistic nature unfits a man for practical

existence.
No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Villon shook

himself, jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and
extinguish the embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and

cautiously peered into the street. The coast was clear; there was
no meddlesome patrol in sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip

out severally; and as Villon was himself in a hurry to escape from
the neighbourhood of the dead Thevenin, and the rest were in a

still greater hurry to get rid of him before he should discover the
loss of his money, he was the first by general consent to issue

forth into the street.
The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only

a few vapours, as thin as moonlight, fleeting rapidly across the
stars. It was bitter cold; and by a common optical effect, things

seemed almost more definite than in the broadest daylight. The
sleeping city was absolutely still: a company of white hoods, a

field full of little Alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon
cursed his fortune. Would it were still snowing! Now, wherever he

went, he left an indelible trail behind him on the glittering
streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to the house by the

cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his own
plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind

him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him with
a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his

own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped boldly
forward in the snow.

Two things preoccupied him as he went: the aspect of the gallows
at Montfaucon in this bright windy phase of the night's existence,

for one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald
head and garland of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart,

and he kept quickening his pace as if he could escape from
unpleasant thoughts by mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked

back over his shoulder with a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the
only moving thing in the white streets, except when the wind

swooped round a corner and threw up the snow, which was beginning
to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust.

Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump and a couple
of lanterns. The clump was in motion, and the lanterns swung as

though carried by men walking. It was a patrol. And though it was
merely crossing his line of march, he judged it wiser to get out of

eyeshot as speedily as he could. He was not in the humour to be
challenged, and he was conscious of making a very conspicuous mark

upon the snow. Just on his left hand there stood a great hotel,