The body fell to the ground.
Arnauld came down again, removed an iron ring hardly worth the taking from the dead man's finger, searched in his breast and there found some papers which he carefully put away, put his cloak on again, and coolly walked away, without a look, without a prayer for the poor wretch whom he had worried so during his life, and whom he thus robbed in death.
He found his horse in the underbrush, saddled him, and started off at full speed toward Aulnay. He was well satisfied, villain that he was, for Martin no longer was an object of fear to him.
A half-hour later, just as the first glimmer of day began to appear in the east, a wood-cutter, chancing to pass that way, saw the gallows-cord cut, and the body lying on the ground. He drew near, fearful and curious at the same time, to the dead man, whose clothes were in disorder, and the cord loose around his neck; he was wondering whether the weight of the body had broken the cord, or if some friend had cut it, too late, no doubt. He even ventured to touch the body to make sure that it was really lifeless.
To his unbounded alarm, the body moved its head and hands, and raised itself upon its knees; and the terrified wood-cutter fled into the woods, crossing himself over and over again, and commending his soul to God and the saints.
"Old Lucifer, thou libertine,
Wilt thou not send some wine
From Acheron's best cabaret
To grace this feast of mine?"
CHAPTER III
ARNAULD DU THILL'S BUCOLIC DREAMS
The Constable de Montmorency, who had only returned to Paris the night before, after paying a royal sum by way of ransom, had presented himself at the Louvre to ascertain how the land lay; but Henri had received him with forbidding coolness, and had indulged himself in the highest encomiums upon the administration of the Duc de Guise, who had so arranged matters, he said, as to diminish, if not altogether to amend, the misfortunes of the kingdom.