pack of cards before them, all greasy with the marks of
cheating thumbs. And they whispered to one another over their gin,
but so low that the landlord of the tavern at the other end of the
room could hear only muffled oaths, and knew not by Whom they swore
or what they said.

These three were the staunchest friends that ever God had given unto
a man. And he to whom their friendship had been given had nothing
else besides, saving some bones that swung in the wind and rain, and
an old torn coat and iron chains, and a soul that might not go free.

But as the night wore on the three friends left their gin and stole
away, and crept down to that graveyard where rested in his sepulchre
Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence. At the edge of the
graveyard, but outside the consecrated ground, they dug a hasty
grave, two digging while one watched in the wind and rain. And
the worms that crept in the unhallowed ground wondered and waited.

And the terrible hour of midnight came upon them with its fears, and
found them still beside the place of tombs. And the three friends
trembled at the horror of such an hour in such a place, and shivered
in the wind and drenching rain, but still worked on. And the wind
blew and blew.

Soon they had finished. And at once they left the hungry grave with
all its worms unfed, and went away over the wet fields stealthily
but in haste, leaving the place of tombs behind them in the
midnight. And as they went they shivered, and each man as he
shivered cursed the rain aloud. And so they came to the spot where
they had hidden a ladder and a lantern. There they held long debate
whether they should light the lantern, or whether they should go
without it for fear of the King's men. But in the end it seemed to
them better that they should have the light of their lantern, and
risk being taken by the King's men and hanged, than that they should
come suddenly face to face in the darkness with whatever one might
come face to face with a little after midnight about the Gallows
Tree.

On three roads in England whereon it was not the wont of folk to go
their ways in safety, travellers tonight went unmolested. But the
three friends, walking several paces wide of the King's highway,
approached the Gallows Tree, and Will carried the lantern and Joe
the ladder, but Puglioni carried a great sword wherewith to do the
work which must be done. When they came close, they saw how bad was
the case with Tom,