"Here it is."
"Open it—wider—wider!"
And Coconnas took from his pocket the handful of gold he had prepared for his anonymous physician and placed it in the executioner's hand.
"I would rather have had your hand entirely and solely," said Maître Caboche, shaking his head, "for I do not lack money, but I am in need of hands to touch mine. Never mind. God bless you, my dear gentleman."
"So then, my friend," said Coconnas, looking at the executioner with curiosity, "it is you who put men to the rack, who break them on the wheel, quarter them, cut off heads, and break bones. Aha! I am very glad to have made your acquaintance."
"Sir," said Maître Caboche, "I do not do all myself; just as you noble gentlemen have your lackeys to do what you do not choose to do yourself, so have I my assistants, who do the coarser work and despatch clownish fellows. Only when, by chance, I have to do with folks of quality, like you and your companion, for instance, ah! then it is another thing, and I take a pride in doing everything myself, from first to last,—that is to say, from the first putting of the question, to the decapitation."
In spite of himself, Coconnas felt a shudder pervade his veins, as if the brutal wedge was pressing his leg—as if the edge of the axe was against his neck.
La Mole, without being able to account for it, felt the same sensation.
But Coconnas overcame the emotion, of which he was ashamed, and desirous of taking leave of Maître Caboche with a jest on his lips, said to him:
"Well, master, I hold you to your word, and when it is my turn to mount Enguerrand de Marigny's gallows or Monsieur de Nemours's scaffold you alone shall lay hands on me."