llain, and be quick. What is the sum of
Curtin's bribe?"

He stood white and mute.

"Fonvelle's?"

Still he stood silent, glaring with the devil in his eyes; while the
other men whimpered and protested their innocence, and the crowd stared
as if they could never see enough.

"Philippon's?"

"I take no bribes," he muttered.

"Lescaut's?"

"Not a denier."

"Liar!" I exclaimed. "Liar, who devour widows' houses and poor men's
corn! Who grind the weak and say it is the King; and let the rich go
free. Answer me, and answer the truth. How much do these men give
you?"

"Nothing," he said defiantly.

"Very well," I answered; "then I will have the list. It is in your
shoe."

"I have no list," he said, beginning to tremble.

"It is in your shoe," I repeated, pointing to his gouty foot. "Maignan,
off with his shoe, and look in it."

Disregarding his shrieks of pain, they tore it off and looked in it.
There was no list.

"Off with his stocking," I said roundly.

"It is there."

He flung himself down at that, cursing and protesting by turns. But I
remembered the trampled corn, and the girl's bleeding face, and I was
inexorable. The stocking was drawn off, not too tenderly, and turned
inside out. Still no list was found.

"He has it," I persisted. "We have tried the shoe and we have tried
the stocking, now we must try the foot. Fetch a stirrup-leather, and
do you hold him, and let one of the grooms give him a dozen on that
foot."

But at that he gave way; he flung himself on his knees, screaming for
mercy.

"The list!" I said,

"I have no list! I have none!" he wailed.

"Then give it me out of your head. Curtin, how much?"

He glanced at the man I named, and shivered, and for a moment was
silent. But one of the grooms approaching with the stirrup-leather, he
found his voice. "Forty crowns," he muttered.

"Fonvelle?"

"The same."

I made him confess also the sums which he had received from Lescaut and
Philippon, and then the names of seven others who had been in the habit
of bribing him. Satisfied that he had so far told the truth, I bade
him put on his stocking and shoe. "And now," I said to Boisrueil, when
this was done, "take him to the whipping-post there, and tie him up;
and see that each man of the eleven gives him a stripe for every crown
with which he has bribed him--and good ones, or I will have them tied
up in his place. Do you hear, you rascals?" I continued to the