“Will you?” said Très-Long to Ulenspiegel.
“Parole de soldat n’est plus parole d’or,” Ulenspiegel answered.
“Draw the cord,” said de Lumey.
The executioner was about to obey when a young maid, dressed all in white and with a wreath of flowers round her head, ran up the steps of the scaffold like one mad, and threw herself on the neck of Ulenspiegel.
“This man is mine,” she said. “I take him for my husband.”
And the people broke into applause, and the women cried aloud:
“Long live the maid, long live the maid that has saved the life of Ulenspiegel!”
“What does this mean?” demanded Messire de Lumey.
“You must know that by the legal usages and customs of our city any young maid or unmarried girl has the right to save a man from hanging, provided that she be willing to take him for her husband at the foot of the gallows.”