"He shall be found and placed in my lowest dungeon," said the Bishop fiercely. "Now tell me what he hath done."
"On my way hither I lodged with a poor woman who told me that he had slain before her eyes her husband and her sons, and all for a cup of silver coin that stood upon the mantel."
"A mere cup of silver coin!" groaned the Bishop. "He shall hang."
Then he told of the murder of Baron Divonne, and of the Squire's daughter of Yverton, who was starved with her seven children; and he told all the tales that the wandering merchant had brought with his cloths of cashmere and of silk. As he spoke longer, the face of his host grew anxious, and when he finished, saying, "Men call him the Gentle Robber," black care sat upon the brow of the host.
"Delay not," pleaded Louis. "Give me armed men, for thou hast said that he shall die for his sins, and I have the blood of fighters in my veins."
"Nay, child," said the Bishop. "Not so."
"Thou hast promised!" he cried in amaze.
"Ay," he made answer, "but I knew not then that the offenses were so many and so great, or that the enterprise was—ahem!—planned upon so large a scale. That makes all different."
"That makes the need to punish him a thousandfold greater," stammered the lad.
"Tut, tut!" said the Bishop, with the solemn smile he wore. "Thou dost not understand: logic is ever lacking in the young."