than you! I held my tongue about you these eleven years past, I held it
yesterday and saved your paltry life, and you'd repay me by stabbing me
in the dark--in a fine old-fashioned way too, with your trap-doors, and
blown-out candle, and Italian tricks--"

He held the candle down near the white beard as though he would singe it.

"Come, sit up against the wall there and let me look at you."

Cringing, the old man drew himself over to the wall. Detricand, seating
himself in a chair, held the candle up before him.

After a moment he said: "What I want to know is, how could a low-flying
cormorant like you beget a gull of the cliffs like Maitre Ranulph?"

The old man did not answer, but sat blinking with malignant yet fearful
eyes at Detricand, who continued: "What did you come back for? Why
didn't you stay dead? Ranulph had a name as clean as a piece of paper
from the mill, and he can't write it now without turning sick, because
it's the same name as yours. You're the choice blackamoor of creation,
aren't you? Now what have you got to say?"

"Let me go," whined the old man with the white beard. "Let me go,
monsieur. Don't send me to prison."

Detricand stirred him with his foot, as one might a pile of dirt.

"Listen," said he. "In the Vier Marchi they're cutting off the ear of a
man and nailing it to a post, because he ill-used a cow. What do you
suppose they'd do to you, if I took you down there and told them it was