“By the Holy Grail! good hermit, what is that infernal stuff? I have not drank its like since the day that I came near drowning in my voyage from Copenhagen to Throndhjem. Truly, hermit, that is no water from Lynrass spring; it is salt water.” “Salt water,” repeated Spiagudry, his terror increasing as he looked at the hermit’s glove. “Well, well!” said the hangman, turning toward him with a loud laugh; “so everything alarms you, old Absalom,--even to the drink of a holy monk who chooses to mortify his flesh!” “Alas, no, master! But salt water--There is but one man--” “Come, come, you don’t know what you are talking about, sir doctor; your distress must be caused by your bad conscience, or else you despise our company.” These words, uttered in a humorous tone, reminded Spiagudry that he must needs hide his fears. To mollify his much-dreaded host, he called his vast memory to his aid, and summoned up all the presence of mind which was left to him. “I despise you,--you, my lord and master! You, whose presence in a province gives that province the _merum imperium_![9] You, mighty hangman, the executioner of secular vengeance, the sword of justice, the shield of innocence! You, whom Aristotle in the sixth book and last chapter of his ‘Politics’ ranks with magistrates, and whose salary Paris de Puteo, in his treatise ‘De Syndico,’ fixes at five gold crowns, as this passage proves: _Quinque aureos manivolto_! You, sir, whose Cronstadt colleagues were ennobled when they had cut off three hundred heads,--you, whose terrible but most honorable functions are performed with pride in Franconia by the most recent bridegroom, in Reutlingen by the youngest of the city councillors, in Stedien by the last-made citizen! And do I not also know, good master, that your colleagues in France have the right of _havadium_ upon every leper, upon pigs, and upon cake on Epiphany eve? How could I fail to feel the deepest respect for you when the abbot of Saint Germain des Prés gives you a boar’s head every year, on Saint Vincent’s Day, and puts you at the head of his procession!” Here the keeper’s erudite flow of fancy was abruptly cut short by the hangman. “Upon my word, this is the first that I have heard of it. The learned abbot of whom you speak, my worthy friend, has hitherto defrauded me of all these fine privileges which you describe in such attractive fashion.--Strangers,” continued Orugix, “aside from all this old fool’s extravagant nonsense, it is quite true that I have missed my career. I am only the poor hangman of a poor province. Well, I certainly ought to have done better than Stillison Dickoy, the famous hangman of Moscow. Would you believe that I am the same man who was chosen twenty-four years ago to behead Schumacker?” “Schumacker, Count of Griffenfeld!” exclaimed Ordener.