up, can't you?" he went on, giving another shake to the murdered body.
"Tread out that fire, Nick!"

But Nick was better employed; he was quietly taking Villon's purse, as
the poet sat, limp and trembling, on the stool where he had been making
a ballade not three minutes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly demanded
a share of the booty, which the monk silently promised as he passed the
little bag into the bosom of his gown. In many ways an artistic nature
unfits a man for practical existence.

No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Villon shook himself,
jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and extinguish the
embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and cautiously peered into
the street. The coast was clear; there was no meddlesome patrol in
sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally; and as Villon
was himself in a hurry to escape from the neighbourhood of the dead
Thevenin, and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of him
before he should discover the loss of his money, he was the first by
general consent to issue forth into the street.

The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only a few
vapours, as thin as moonlight, fleeted rapidly across the stars. It was
bitter cold; and, by a common optical effect, things seemed almost more
definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was absolutely
still; a company of white hoods, a field full of little alps, below the
twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it were still snowing!
Now, wherever he went, he left an indelible trail behind him on the
glittering streets; wherever he went, he was still tethered to the house
by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went, he must weave, with his
own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind