, man! they heed not thee. Natheless, did I
hang over such a skin of Rhenish as this, and three churls sat beneath a
drinking it and offered me not a drop, I'd soon be down among them."

"Denys! Denys!"

"My spirit would cut the cord, and womp would come my body amongst ye,
with a hand on the bottle, and one eye winking, t'other."

Gerard started up with a cry of horror and his fingers to his ears, and
was running from the place, when his eye fell on the watcher's axe. The
tangible danger brought him back. He sat down again on the axe with his
fingers in his ears.

"Courage, l'ami, le diable est mort!" shouted Denys gaily, and offered
him a piece of bear's ear, put it right under his nose as he stopped his
ears. Gerard turned his head away with loathing.

"Wine!" he gasped. "Heaven knows I have much need of it, with such
companions as thee and--"

He took a long draught of the Rhenish wine: it ran glowing through his
veins, and warmed and strengthened his heart, but could not check his
tremors whenever a gust of wind came. As for Denys and the other, they
feasted recklessly, and plied the bottle unceasingly, and drank healths
and caroused beneath that creaking sepulchre and its ghastly tenants.

"Ask him how they came here," said Denys, with his mouth full, and
pointing up without looking.

On this question being interpreted to the watcher, he replied that
treason had been their end, diabolical treason and priest-craft. He
then, being rendered communicative by drink, delivered a long prosy
narrative, the purport of which was as follows. These honest gentlemen
who now dangled here so miserably were all stout men and true, and
lived in the forest by their wits. Their independence and thriving state
excited the jealousy and hatred of a large portion of mankind, and many
attempts were made on their lives and liberties; these the Virgin and
their patron saints, coupled with their individual skill and courage
constantly baffled. But yester eve a party of merchants came slowly on
their mules from Dusseldorf. The honest men saw them crawling, and let
them penetrate near a league into the forest, then set upon them to
make them disgorge a portion of their ill-gotten gains. But alas!
the merchants were no merchants at all, but soldiers of more than one
nation, in the pay of the Archbishop of Cologne; haubergeons had they
beneath their gowns, and weapons of all sorts at hand; natheless, the
honest men fought stoutly, and