s shoulders."

"A boon, gracious sir, a boon!" cried the condemned man.

"What then?" asked the bailiff.

"I will confess to my crime. It was indeed I and the black cook, both
from the ship 'La Rose de Gloire,' of Southampton, who did set upon the
Flanders merchant and rob him of his spicery and his mercery, for which,
as we well know, you hold a warrant against us."

"There is little merit in this confession," quoth the bailiff sternly.
"Thou hast done evil within my bailiwick, and must die."

"But, sir," urged Alleyne, who was white to the lips at these bloody
doings, "he hath not yet come to trial."

"Young clerk," said the bailiff, "you speak of that of which you know
nothing. It is true that he hath not come to trial, but the trial hath
come to him. He hath fled the law and is beyond its pale. Touch not that
which is no concern of thine. But what is this boon, rogue, which you
would crave?"

"I have in my shoe, most worshipful sir, a strip of wood which belonged
once to the bark wherein the blessed Paul was dashed up against the
island of Melita. I bought it for two rose nobles from a shipman who
came from the Levant. The boon I crave is that you will place it in my
hands and let me die still grasping it. In this manner, not only shall
my own eternal salvation be secured, but thine also, for I shall never
cease to intercede for thee."

At the command of the bailiff they plucked off the fellow's shoe, and
there sure enough at the side of the instep, wrapped in a piece of fine
sendall, lay a long, dark splinter of wood. The archers doffed caps at
the sight of it, and the bailiff crossed himself devoutly as he handed
it to the robber.

"If it should chance," he said, "that through the surpassing merits of
the blessed Paul your sin-stained soul should gain a way into paradise,
I trust that you will not forget that intercession which you have
promised. Bear in mind too, that it is Herward the bailiff for whom you
pray, and not Herward the sheriff, who is my uncle's son. Now, Thomas, I
pray you dispatch, for we have a long ride before us and sun has already
set."

Alleyne gazed upon the scene--the portly velvet-clad official, the knot
of hard-faced archers with their hands to the bridles of their horses,
the thief with his arms trussed back and his doublet turned down upon
his shoulders. By the side of the track the old dame was standing,
fastening her red whimple once more round her head. Even as he looked