He began to show signs of impatience. "My own escape is at hazard," he added sharply. "My friends are ready for me to go hence; you heard their knocks on yon wall. Will you go with me on such terms or stay and be hanged?"

The stoicism of Villon's face, the stoniness of his stare, altered no whit.

"Your friends? And you a prisoner in St. Antoine? They may be ready and then again ready, but how will that aid you? This is very solid masonry, many feet in thickness. Those window-slits are too narrow to give egress to a sizable eel."

"Man," said the monk, a cause like ours has adherents in the court itself, within the very reach of the Valois. There are trap-doors and catacombs, subterranean ways and secret stairways, in every fortress, in every castle. You doubt me?" he added stormily.

"You mean to go without me? The guide knows my voice; he will not lead you." For answer Villon, smiling faintly, nodded at his heavy iron club.

"You are a patriot, then?" asked the other, his sneer returning. "To a land that by your own words has given you only starvation and jail? You return to your haunts, once more to be hunted down? Or to wander afar, exiled from your friends?"

Villon shook his head, smiling.

Suspended from its rosary of black beads a crucifix dangled below the Carthusian's cord. With an angry look, he raised this heavy piece of iron and struck. the wall sharply four times. The former signal was repeated from beyond. "At the second four, lest there be some error, one of the stones of this cell will swing on an axis. We have only to drop a few feet and follow our guide. The passageway leads to the cellars and into the catacombs. The guide will conduct us to safety. Well?"

"A single guide?" asked Villon, as though he feared so perilous an undertaking with no greater guard.

"Did your lordship expect an army?" sneered the monk.

But the sneer faded as Villon's eyes lighted up. A profound student of facial expression himself, the Carthusian shrank back, hand upraised; but with a single bound the poet pinned him against the wall, and, snapping the rosary, snatched the iron crucifix which then menaced its owner, an iron club in an enemy's hand. For enemy the poet was, if one might judge from looks of fierce dislike. "Speak low," he warned. "A single guide, you said, and in darkness? Do not call out. His blood is enough without adding yours."

He louted low and rapped upon the wall as he had heard the other do. Things being now distinguishable in the darkness, he saw the middle of the cell rise like a wraith from the sea, rise and fall, and the light of the glowing coals revealed a shadowy void. A flagstone had turned and upended.

"Now," whispered Villon, soft-voiced and soft-footed as any cat. "Doff that cowl and robe, Sir Priest, or this holy. cross will give you everlasting life more speedily than you hoped. Off with them, and pray for the soul of the traitor below. He has no such alternative. And think on this, Master Monk. A man may be a thief because he hungers and thirsts, he may kill that he may live; but, by my lustihead! he may not be a traitor unless he is a dog. Carry that message to the badger of Burgundy from the men of Paris. And tell him all true men of Paris serve the Valois, fox and leopard mayhap, but for all that the father of his people and a man after my own heart. Come, no more delay!" he whispered even lower than before, and raised the heavy iron crucifix.

the ground at Villon's feet, he saw a man in garb most unclerical: doublet and hosen and a high-pointed hat where the monkish hood had been. And the doublet, though frayed and worn, had on the breast thereof in tarnished silver threads the fleur-de-lis of France; while encircling the brim of the high-crowned hat were many leaden images, our Lady of Embrum to the fore. Vanished the sneer and the sour and sinister smile; came in their place a homely wink and a thin high laugh. The eyes of the poet bulged like the buttons on the jerkin of a greedy jester.

"Louis the Fox? Louis the Leopard? Why not Louis the Spider, Master Villon?" asked Louis the King.

Villon took a backward step, one and yet another. him.

Louis sprang and gripped

"Ware the opening behind you!" he warned, dragging the poet from the very verge of the black void. "There is a drop of a hundred feet to the stones below." Still holding the poet's scruff, he snatched the cross and struck the wall. The flagstone fell into its place, and the poet to his knees.

"The king!" he murmured brokenly, his teeth chattering, a chill sweat on his brow, his body rough with goose-flesh, as he realized the trap he had escaped so nearly.

III

LOUIS laughed again. It was a situation to his taste. The cell-door opened, and Oliver le Dain, barber in name, prime minister in fame, entered from the adjoining chamber, where were the levers that controlled the dread oubliette. A slight frown clouded his face as he saw that the poet had survived the test; for Oliver feared to lose any of his power with his royal confidant, and this poet, for all he was vagabond and starveling, he knew for a better man than himself, one on whom the king's learning would not be wasted. But he banished his look of discontent as he came out of the shadows and into the circle of light, where the king, looking very like the plain burgher of Paris he professed to be, sat chuckling and eying Villon, who had by now regained his native confidence and had ventured on a wry smile.

"I have a crow to pick with you, Gos

sip," said Louis as Oliver approached. "I should have seen this fellow's first petition before he wasted six months in Master Thibault's jail. Had we his services when we were dauphin, he might have helped us much when our rebellious Paris at first refused us welcome. Had I not read the poems our Cousin Charles sent us prettily bound by his Fougère, Master Villon might have languished there anon and the kingdom lost him altogether. As it nearly did to-night, had he proved traitor. One with wits so keen were too dangerous an enemy to have in our city, Master Poet. It is not the foes without that I fear. That is why I go about with Oliver here and with Tristran and drink at the taverns and watch and listen. It ill beseems a king, they say. Let them say."

He put a hand within his doublet and took out a small book of black-letter. "We have improved somewhat on Cousin Charles," he said, opening it. "His script was daintily limned enough, and many were its varicolored inks and a great deal too much of gilt. But I prefer the homelier way, the way of my Hussite heretic for whom I sent to Mainz, the 'prentice of Faust the printer. Printersounds it strange to your ears, Master Villon? It shall sound loud in the ears of ignorance anon. See what this Gutenberg has wrought. Observe, Master Poet, you have been honored beyond all the men of France. It would have been my right to have taken your life, for I have given you immortality. Yours is the first book to be printed in France."

He gave into Villon's hand a volume in vellum, open at its title-page. There in bold black letters the poet's own name stood stark on the white page.

Twitching for a far different reason than before, his fingers turned the pages, and he saw the ballads of his youth, those of his "Little Testament," not only in the filaments and traceries of his own delicate French, but on each opposite page the Latin nuances of Charles of Orleans and of the king himself. A thrill of pride chilled his spine and burned his eyes. No longer was he Villon the vagabond, but one whom no bishop or lord or king might scorn: Villon-the king had said it himself-the immortal.

Eagerly he drew from his breast his

"Greater Testament," and gave it into the hands of his royal patron. Louis's eyes sparkled as he held the thick roll of manuscript close to the glowing coals, chuckling again as some impudence of the poet caught his eye.

"We shall have rare sport with this," he said. "I am glad it was upon your person, as Oliver must have descended into the oubliette with his dagger in case the fall had not done its duty. So your work would not have been food for mice and rats or have rotted with your bones. You think me too harsh with traitors? But it is not I, but France, Master Villon. One live traitor means a hundred, mayhap a thousand, dead men on the field, harmless peasants, peaceful burghers. That is my way of making war-to scotch the serpent in the egg. An I did not spread terror, there would be too many traitors. Were I only Louis the scholar, every pillory and gibbet you saw to-night would come down. But a king may neither love men nor hate them: he may only rule wisely, and be judged not by his deeds, but by what comes of them. And if France passes to my son a richer country and a happier people, only fools will say I have done wrong."

He yawned. The third watch had long passed. From the windmills of Montmartre, under the walls of the prison, the thin echo of a cock's crow came through the high, barred window-slits. It was very still outside; one could hear the watch men in the Rue Antoine calling the hour and "All 's well."

"All is indeed well, Master Villon," said Louis, these echoes arousing him from reverie. "Peace on earth. A good omen, Oliver, by our Lady of Embrum." He crossed himself sleepily and rose. "Thieve no more, Gossip Villon. It must not be said of my reign that I neglected letters and the arts. Oliver, give him my purse, shave him, shear away those

elf-locks, find him proper gear. And do you, Master Francis, go to some reputable inn and give the name of Loges, by which you were born, representing yourself as a knight of Picardy or Poitou or Provence-what you will. Oliver will instruct you how you may serve me. Our friend the traitor monk spoke truth concerning the holy see and Burgundy. There is also that thrice-damned League of Public Welfare. Private Cutthroats. You will write fewer poems and more history, Gossip. Attend him, Oliver. Then to me in my bedchamber."

Holding the second and greater "Testament" of Villon close to his breast, he raised up its author, who would have kneeled.

"That is well enough for public show. The sheep must be taught to hold in honor those their scatterwits can respect only by goodly measure of gaud and show. But in private my friends kneel only to God, Our Lady, and her saints-some of them. By this true cross of St. Lo, with which you threatened your lawful monarch, some achieved their saintship by easier ways than mine. Good-den to you, Knight of Poitou or Picardy or Provence."

"God save you, beau Sire!" returned the poet, thickly. Louis laid hand on the door, then turned and stood, scratching his ear.

"But concerning this knighthood," he said thoughtfully. "To assume the gilt spurs and banderole without the accolade is deemed a crime by certain of our subjects who administer the high justice and the low. Your neck will be periled enough in our service without that. Henceforth the poet Villon lives only in my Hussite heretic's prints. It shall be as if he died, no man knowing how nor why. He who leaves this Bastille to-night is the Chevalier des Loges, knight by the hand of his king. Oliver, your sword. Francis, you may kneel, after all."