death already. Take him back to the prison then, if you're afraid to
free him." He turned on the crowd fiercely. "Have you nothing to say to
this butchery?" he cried. "For the love of God, haven't you anything to
say?"

Half the crowd shouted "Let him go free!" and the other half,
disappointed in the working out of the gruesome melodrama, groaned and
hooted.

Meanwhile Mattingley stood as still as ever he had stood by his bahue in
the Vier Marchi, watching--waiting.

The Vicomte conferred nervously with the jurats for a moment, and then
turned to the guard.

"Take the prisoner to the Vier Prison," he said. Mattingley had been
slowly solving the problem of his salvation. His eye, like a gimlet, had
screwed its way through Ranulph's words into what lay behind, and at last
he understood the whole beautiful scheme. It pleased him: Carterette had
been worthy of herself, and of him. Ranulph had played his game well
too. He only failed to do justice to the poor beganne, Dormy Jamais.
But then the virtue of fools is its own reward. As the procession
started back with the Undertaker's Apprentice now following after
Mattingley, not going before, Mattingley turned to him, and with a smile
of malice said:

"Ch'est tres ship-shape, Maitre-eh!" and he jerked his head back towards
the inadequate rope.

He was not greatly troubled about the rest of this grisly farce. He was