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Either the grey eyes, their lids no longer drooping, searched him out, or Commines' stern gaze stared him down, or, worst of all, he met the sardonic light with which Villon beamed his satisfaction at a scene quite to his humour, and so Jean Saxe was dumb, remembering that Louis had many ways of paying his debts, and more went into Amboise than came out again.
Villon came close to her and peered into her eyes. "I ride in your honour. Heaven has been very good to me, and I serve France serving you. Perhaps I serve both for the last time." "For the last time?" she repeated. "Even so, my sweet Lady Echo. Those far away lanterns warn me that I may die to-morrow. Some of us will be dreaming our last dreams by sunrise. I may be one of those heavy sleepers."
"A brawl?" "Well, something of that sort," Villon admitted with a quaver. "Perhaps a fellow murdered?" "Oh no, not murdered," said the poet, more and more confused. "It was all fair play murdered by accident. I had no hand in it, God strike me dead!" he added fervently. "One rogue the fewer, I dare say," observed the master of the house.
Judge Methuen was a visitor in Paris, and we became boon companions. It was he who rescued me from the parasites and revived the flames of honorable ambition, which had well-nigh been extinguished by the wretched influence of Villon and Rousseau. The Judge was a year my senior, and a wealthy father provided him with the means for gratifying his wholesome and refined tastes.
Tabary was the last to help himself; he made a dash at the money, and retired to the other end of the apartment. Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair, and drew out the dagger, which was followed by a jet of blood. "You fellows had better be moving," he said, as he wiped the blade on his victim's doublet. "I think we had," returned Villon with a gulp. "Damn his fat head!" he broke out.
"My hands are blue to the wrist," pleaded Villon; "my feet are dead and full of twinges; my nose aches with the sharp air; the cold lies at my heart. I may be dead before morning. Only this once, father, and, before God, I will never ask again!" "You should have come earlier," said the ecclesiastic, coolly. "Young men require a lesson now and then."
The masters did not encourage these researches; a pure enthusiasm, they felt, should be for cricket and football, the dilettanti might even play fives and read Shakespeare without blame, but healthy English boys should have nothing to do with decadent periods. He was once found guilty of recommending Villon to a school-fellow named Barnes.
The king was silent for a moment; then with an imperative gesture he dismissed the astrologer, who entered the tower and climbed the winding stairs to the room where he pursued his occult studies. The king walked restlessly up and down, indifferent to the roses, thinking only of the stars. "If François Villon were the king of France," he muttered. "How that mad ballad maker glowed last night.
I wait God's summons contentedly in my own house, or, if it please the king to call me out again, upon the field of battle. You look for the gallows; a rough, swift death, without hope or honour. Is there no difference between these two?" "As far as to the moon," Villon acquiesced.
Villon's words ran fast from him: "I am François Villon and yet no longer he, for my old evil self is dead. I am François Villon who served you with his sword, who praised you with his pen, and who loves you with all his soul." The girl's whole body shook with fear as she answered: "It isn't true! It isn't true! I don't believe you." Villon sprang to his feet.
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