Olivier in obedience to an order of the king's, gave a signal and the girl's body was swiftly wrapped in a soldier's cloak and laid gently upon a pair of crossed halberds. As this was being done, Noel le Jolys came panting back with a red sword in his hand. "Thibaut d'Aussigny is dead, sire," he said; "my hand was the hand that finished him." Then as his eyes fell on the dead body, they shone with sudden tears. Villon went up to him and touched him on the shoulder. "I leave this dead woman in your hands," he said, "for I think you had a kindness for her. See that she has Christian burial." Noel bowed his head and followed in silence the girl's body. The garden was left to Louis and Villon, Tristan and Olivier, and the handful of captured rogues who stood apart, strongly guarded and stripped of their pilgrims' garb, gazing amazed at Louis and his double. Villon, silent too, looked after the little group that bore away the dead girl's body. His mind was a warfare of wild memories. Strange recollections of times and places with Huguette came crowding up and beating piteously upon his brain. He thought of what he had been, and groaned; of what he was now, and his soul cried out as in prayer in the name of Katherine. CHAPTER XII A VIRGIN'S TEARS The king's hand fell upon his shoulder and shattered his meditations. "Are you so dashed by the death of a wanton?" the king asked mockingly. Villon turned upon him in a noble rage. "She had God's breath in her body, sire," he said. Then drawing his hand across his forehead as if to dissipate the sad fancies that oppressed him, he went on: "I have been John-a-Nods for the moment, sire; now I am Jack-a-Deeds again. The hour for battle is at hand." Louis shrugged his shoulders. "You have done me a good turn, gossip," he said, "and may ask any grace of me except your life. That depends on your lady." Villon looked over at the corner where his old boon companions were huddled together, the miserable centre of a circle of soldiers. "Sire," he said; "grant me the lives of those rascals. They shall ride with me and fight for France to-night. It is better than making them play bob-apple on the evil tree." The king whispered a few words to Tristan, and Tristan very reluctantly gave the order of liberation. The comrades of the Cockleshell were freed of their bonds and bade to stand apart, under guard and out of earshot, to wait on destiny for future commands. At this moment Louis, glancing upwards, caught sight between the flower vases on the terrace of a gleam of crimson, the crimson silk of a woman's robe. It betrayed the presence of Katherine de Vaucelles, who had come hard upon the hour of nine to seek for her lover, but who paused irresolute at the head of the stairs, noting the presence of the king. Louis beckoned to her amicably, and she began slowly to descend the staircase. Louis came over to Villon and whispered in his ear: