They are fleeing,
they are not waiting. You should look to it that a party of horse
be set upon their track."

The woman paled slightly, but quite perceptibly, and the man looked
flustered and irresolute. I said:

"Come, friend, I will walk a little way with you, and explain which
direction I think they would try to take. If they were merely
resisters of the gabelle or some kindred absurdity I would try
to protect them from capture; but when men murder a person of
high degree and likewise burn his house, that is another matter."

The last remark was for the king--to quiet him. On the road
the man pulled his resolution together, and began the march with
a steady gait, but there was no eagerness in it. By and by I said:

"What relation were these men to you--cousins?"

He turned as white as his layer of charcoal would let him, and
stopped, trembling.

"Ah, my God, how know ye that?"

"I didn't know it; it was a chance guess."

"Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they were, too."

"Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?"

He didn't quite know how to take that; but he said, hesitatingly:

"Ye-s."

"Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!"

It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel.

"Say the good words again, brother! for surely ye mean that ye
would not betray me an I failed of my duty."

"Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except the duty to keep
still and let those men get away. They've done a righteous deed."

He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with apprehension at the
same time. He looked up and down the road to see that no one
was coming, and then said in a cautious voice:

"From what land come you, brother, that you speak such perilous
words, and seem not to be afraid?"

"They are not perilous words when spoken to one of my own caste,
I take it. You would not tell anybody I said them?"

"I? I would be drawn asunder by wild horses first."

"Well, then, let me say my say. I have no fears of your repeating
it. I think devil's work has been done last night upon those
innocent poor people. That old baron got only what he deserved.
If I had my way, all his kind should have the same luck."

Fear and depression vanished from the man's manner, and gratefulness
and a brave animation took their place:

"Even though you be a spy, and your words a trap for my undoing,
yet are they such refreshment that to hear them again and others
like to them, I would