Yet late that night when the house was still She heard a horse ride over the hill. "It is he, it is he," her heart sang sweet. Then out of the window climbed to meet The lover who made her hot heart beat. Yes there he was with his handsome head, And now the same dear things he said As he drew close with a sweep of his arm. The gods of the gallows need no rest-- They ride like chieftains twelve abreast. One flower touched as she fluttered by, Swung on its stem, And one bright star in the purple sky Shone over them. And what he said, it matters not, Nor what she said to him. And he stopped to listen like one who is stirred; His horse even hearkened, as though he heard. For down the road there came abreast Twelve men in ancient armor dressed. There was something strange in the way they rode; There was something odd in their manners. They did not see the lovers there, Nor heed the house at all, But they rode like mad their horses backs.... Rode through the solid wall. When she had opened her frightened eyes What was her pitiful heart's surprise To find him gone And the yellow dawn A roaring flame in the new day's skies. And now they have vanished leaving hope, And a thing that hangs at the end of a rope. They found her there In a little heap As though she had walked In her lilied sleep. And they never knew, Though her mother said: "It's a pity, so, With her lover dead On the gallows' tree Three days ago...." Chapter LX "Why do you weep?" asked Gud, "since most of these dead ones will go to Hell anyway." The man did not answer but kept on weeping. So Gud paused to read the epitaph on the tombstone of the grave on which the man was sitting. The inscription was: "IN THIS GRAVE LIE THE DAMNED SOULS OF UNBAPTIZED BABES." "Come," said Gud, shaking the weeping man by the shoulder. "If your child wasn't baptized it ought to be damned, but there is no use weeping about it." "I never had a child," said the man, "but if I were going to have one, I would take no chances, for I would call the priest before I sent for the doctor." "Then why are you weeping?" repeated Gud. "Not over the contents of this grave, I assure you, but because of the contents of that grave there by the creek's edge." "Is a relative of yours buried there?" asked Gud. "He was no relative of mine," said the man. "And yet I am weeping because he is dead, and you would weep, too, if you were in my boots. You see, I am the hangman and I hanged that man only a fortnight ago." "Ah, ha!" said Gud, "you hanged an innocent man!" "Indeed I did not! And if I wept over every innocent man I have hanged, I would never have time to clean the scaffold. But I hanged that man for a petty crime that was never committed." "And you weep?" asked Gud.