"On the contrary, an it like your Majesty, you were ever wont to say that I was too fast, and mistook your purpose, and did the job on the wrong subject. Now, please your Majesty to give me a sign, just when you part with Galeotti for the night, whether the business goes on or no. I have known your Majesty once or twice change your mind, and blame me for over-dispatch.[51] "
"Thou suspicious creature," answered King Louis, "I tell thee I will not change my mind; – but to silence thy remonstrances, observe, if I say to the knave at parting, 'There is a Heaven above us!' then let the business go on; but if I say, 'Go in peace,' you will understand that my purpose is altered."
"My head is somewhat of the dullest out of my own department," said Tristan' l'Hermite. "Stay, let me rehearse – If you bid him depart in peace, I am to have him dealt upon?"
"No, no – idiot, no!" said the King; "in that case you let him pass free. But if I say, 'There is a Heaven above us!' up with him a yard or two nearer the planets he is so conversant with."
"I wish we may have the means here," said the Provost.
"Then up with him or down with him, it matters not which," answered the King, grimly smiling.
"And the body," said the Provost, "how shall we dispose of it?"
"Let me see an instant," said the King – "the windows of the hall are too narrow; but that projecting oriel is wide enough. We will over with him into the Somme, and put a paper on his breast, with the legend, 'Let the justice of the King pass toll-free.' The Duke's officers may seize it for duties if they dare."
The Provost-Marshal left the apartment of Louis, and summoned his two assistants to council in an embrasure in the great hall, where Trois-Eschelles stuck a torch against the wall to give them light. They discoursed in whispers, little noticed by Oliver le Dain, who seemed sunk in dejection, and Le Balafré, who was fast asleep.
"Comrades," said the Provost to his executioners, "perhaps you have thought that our vocation was over, or that, at least, we were more likely to be the subjects of the duty of others, than to have any more to discharge on our own parts. But courage, my mates! our gracious master has reserved for us one noble cast of our office, and it must be gallantly executed, as by men who would live in history."