, there was something which stirred the nerves. It was only
after a long look that the stranger averted his eyes, and cast a casual
glance at a queer, dark object, which a few paces away swung above the
street, dimly outlined against the sky. It was clear that it was that
which had fascinated his companion.

"Umph!" he ejaculated in the tone of a man who should say "Is that all?"
And he turned to the youth again. "You seem taken aback, young man?" he
said. "Surely that is no such strange sight in Paris nowadays. What with
Leaguers hanging Politiques, and Politiques hanging Leaguers, and both
burning Huguenots, I thought a dead man was no longer a bogey to
frighten children with!"

"Hush, sir, in Heaven's name!" the young man exclaimed, shuddering at
his words. And then, with a gesture of despair, "He was my father!"

The stranger whistled. "He was your father, was he!" he replied more
gently. "I dare swear too that he was an honest man, since the Sixteen
have done this. There, steady, my friend. These are no times for
weeping. Be thankful that Le Clerc and his crew have spared your home,
and your--your sister. That is rare clemency in these days, and Heaven
only knows how long it may last. You wear a sword? Then shed no tears to
rust it. Time enough to weep, man, when there is blood to be washed from
the blade."

"You speak boldly," said the youth, checking his emotion somewhat, "but
had they hung your father before his own door----"

"Good man," said the stranger with a coolness that bordered on the
cynical, "he has been dead these twenty years."

"Then your mother?" the student suggested with the feeble persistence by
which weak minds show their consciousness of contact with stronger ones,
"you had then----"

"Hung them all as high as Haman!"

"Ay, but suppose there were among them some you could not hang,"
objected the youth, in a lower tone, while he eyed his companion
narrowly, "some of the clergy, you understand?"

"They had swung--though they had all been Popes of Rome," was the blunt
answer.

The young man shook his head, and drew off a pace. He scanned the
stranger curiously, keeping his back turned to the corpse the while; but
he failed by that light to make out much one way or the other. Scarcely
a moment too was allowed him before the murmur of voices and the clash
of weapons at the farther end of the street interrupted him. "The watch
are coming," he said roughly.

"You are right," his compani