denly out of the stubble by the wayside. In his hand
he held a heavy staff, newly cut from the forest, a stock which in his
brawny arms seemed better adapted for a weapon than as a prop for his
sturdy frame. From the rope girdle about his waist depended a rosary
whose great beads would have served the fingers of a Cyclops, and a
most diminutive, leathern-bound prayer-book. At the appearance of the
fool and his companion, he opened an enormous mouth, and in a voice
proportionately large began to whine right vigorously:

"Charity, good people, for the Mother Church! Charity in the name of
the Holy Mother! In the name of the saints, the apostles and the
evangelists! St. John, St. Peter, St.--" Then broke off suddenly,
staring stupidly at the jester.

"The duke's fool!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here? A plague
upon it! You have as many lives as a monk."

"Call you yourself a monk, rascal?" asked the jester, contemptuously.

"At times. Charity, good fool!" the canting rogue again began to
whine, edging nearer. "Charity, mistress! For the sake of the
prophets and the disciples! The seven sacraments, the feast of the
Pentecost and the Passover! In the name of the holy Fathers! St.
Sebastian! St. Michael! St.--"

But the fugitives had already sped on, and the unregenerate knave
turned his pious eloquence into an unhallowed channel of oaths, waving
his staff menacingly after them.

"I fear me," said the jester, when they had put a goodly distance
between themselves and the solitary figure, "yonder brother craves
almsgiving with his voice, and enforces the bounty with his staff. Woe
betide the good Samaritan who falls within reach of his pilgrim's prop."

"You knew him?" she asked.

"I had the doubtful pleasure," he answered. "He was hired to kill me."

"Why?" in surprise.

"Because the--duke wanted me out of the way."

She asked no further questions, although he could see by her brow she
was thinking deeply. Was the duke then no better than a common
assassin? She frowned, then gave an impatient exclamation.

"It is inexplicable," she said, and rode the faster.

The jester, too, was silent, but his mind dwelt upon the future and its
hazards. He little liked their meeting with the false monk. Why was
the Franciscan traveling in their direction? Had others of that band
of pillagers, street-fools and knave-minstrels, formerly infesting the
neighborhood of the palace, gone that way? He