the merchants were no merchants at all, but soldiers of more than one nation, in the pay of the Archbishop of Cologne; haubergeons had they beneath their gowns, and weapons of all sorts at hand;natheless, the honest men fought stoutly, and pressed the traitors hard, when lo! horsemen, that had been planted in ambush many hours before, galloped up, and with these new diabolical engines of war, shot leaden bullets, and laid many an honest fellow low, and so quelled the courage of others that they yielded them prisoners.These being taken red-handed, the victors, who with malice inconceivable had brought cords knotted round their waists, did speedily hang, and by their side the dead ones, to make the gallanter show."That one at the end was the captain.He never felt the cord.He was riddled with broad arrows and leaden balls or ever they could take him: a worthy man as ever cried, 'Stand and deliver!' but a little hasty, not much: stay! I forgot; he is dead.Very hasty, and obstinate as a pig.That one in the -buff jerkin is the lieutenant, as good a soul as ever lived: he was hanged alive.This one here, I never could abide; no (not that one; that is Conrad, my bosom friend); I mean this one right overhead in the chicken-toed shoon; you were always carrying tales, ye thief, and making mischief; you know you were; and, sirs, I am a man that would rather live united in a coppice than in a forest with backbiters and tale-bearers: strangers, I drink to you." And so he went down the whole string, indicating with the neck of the bottle, like a showman with his pole, and giving a neat description of each, which though pithy was invariably false;for the showman had no real eye for character, and had misunderstood every one of these people.
"Enough palaver!" cried Denys."Marchons! Give me his axe: now tell him he must help you along."The man's countenance fell, but he saw in Denys's eye that resistance would be dangerous; he submitted.Gerard it was who objected.He said, "Y pensez-vous? to put my hand on a thief, it maketh my flesh creep.""Childishness! all trades must live.Besides, I have my reasons.
Be not you wiser than your elder."
"No.Only if I am to lean on him I must have my hand in my bosom, still grasping the haft of my knife.""It is a new attitude to walk in; but please thyself."And in that strange and mixed attitude of tender offices and deadly suspicion the trio did walk.I wish I could draw them - Iwould not trust to the pen.
The light of the watch-tower at Dusseldorf was visible as soon as they cleared the wood, and cheered Gerard.When, after an hour's march, the black outline of the tower itself and other buildings stood out clear to the eye, their companion halted and said gloomily, "You may as well slay me out of hand as take me any nearer the gates of Dusseldorf town."On this being communicated to Denys, he said at once, "Let him go then, for in sooth his neck will be in jeopardy if he wends much further with us." Gerard acquiesced as a matter of course.His horror of a criminal did not in the least dispose him to active co-operation with the law.But the fact is, that at this epoch no private citizen in any part of Europe ever meddled with criminals but in self-defence, except, by-the-by, in England, which, behind other nations in some things, was centuries before them all in this.
The man's personal liberty being restored, he asked for his axe.
