"Et ben," said one, "he was a brave admiral!"

"Bravery was his trade," answered another: "act like a sheep and you'll
be eaten by the wolf."

"It was a bad business about her that was Guida Landresse," remarked a
third.

"Every man knows himself, God knows all men," snuffled the fanatical
barber who had once delivered a sermon from the Pompe des Brigands.

"He made things lively while he lived, ba su!" droned the jailer of the
Vier Prison. "But he has folded sails now."

"Ma fe, yes, he sleeps like a porpoise now, and white as a wax he looked
up there in the Cohue Royale," put in a centenier standing by.

A voice came shrilly over the head of the centenier. "As white as you'll
look yellow one day, bat'd'lagoule! Yellow and green, oui-gia--yellow
like a bad apple, and cowardly green as a leek." This was Manon Moignard
the witch.

"Man doux d'la vie, where's the Master of Burials?" babbled the jailer.
"The apprentice does the obs'quies to-day."

"The Master's sick of a squinzy," grunted the centenier. "So
hatchet-face and bundle-o'-nails there brings dust to dust, amen."

All turned now to the Undertaker's Apprentice, a grim, saturnine figure
with his grey face, protuberant eyes, and obsequious solemnity, in which
lurked a callous smile. The burial of the great, the execution of
the wicked, were alike to him. In him Fate seemed to personify life's
revenges, its futilities, its calculating ironies. The flag-draped
coffin was just about to pass, and the fanatical barber harked back
to Philip. "They say it was all empty honours with him afore he died
abroad."

"A full belly's a full belly if it's only full of straw," snapped Manon
Moignard.

"Who was it brought him home?" asked the jailer. "None that was born
on Jersey, but two that lived here," remarked Maitre Damian, the
schoolmaster from St. Aubins.

"That Chevalier of Champsavoys and the other Duc de Bercy," interposed
the centenier.

Maitre Damian tapped his stick upon the ground, and said oracularly: "It
is not for me to say, but which is the rightful Duke and which is not,
there is the political question!"

"Pardi, that's it," answered the centenier. "Why did Detricand Duke turn
Philip Duke out of duchy, see him killed, then fetch him home to Jersey
like a brother? Ah, man pethe benin, that's beyond me!

"Those great folks does things their own ways; oui-gia," remarked the
jailer.

"Why did Detricand Duke go back to France?" asked Maitre Dami