Denys held out a bone under his eye in dead silence. It was a bone no man, however ignorant, however lying, could confound with those of sheep or oxen. The sight of it shut the lying lips, and palsied the heartless heart.
The landlord's hair rose visibly on his head like spikes, and his knees gave way as if his limbs had been struck from under him. But the archers dragged him fiercely up, and kept him erect under the torch, staring fascinated at the dead skull which, white as the living cheek opposed, but no whiter, glared back again at its murderer, whose pale lip now opened and opened, but could utter no sound.
“Ah!” said Denys solemnly, and trembling now with rage, “look on the sockets out of which thou hast picked the eyes, and let them blast thine eyes, that crows shall pick out ere this week shall end. Now, hold thou that while I search on. Hold it, I say, or here I rob the gallows--” and he threatened the quaking wretch with his naked sword, till with a groan he took the skull and held it, almost fainting.
Oh! that every murderer, and contriver of murder, could see him, sick, and staggering with terror, and with his hair on end, holding the cold skull, and feeling that his own head would soon be like it. And soon the heap was scattered, and alas! not one nor two, but many skulls were brought to light, the culprit moaning at each discovery.
Suddenly Denys uttered a strange cry of distress to come from so bold and hard a man; and held up to the torch a mass of human hair. It was long, glossy, and golden. A woman's beautiful hair. At the sight of it the archers instinctively shook the craven wretch in their hands: and he whined.
“I have a little sister with hair just so fair and shining as this,” gulped Denys. “Jesu! if it should be hers! There quick, take my sword and dagger, and keep them from my hand, lest I strike him dead and wrong the gibbet. And thou, poor innocent victim, on whose head this most lovely hair did grow, hear me swear this, on bended knee, never to leave this man till I see him broken to pieces on the wheel even for thy sake.”
He rose from his knee. “Ay, had he as many lives as here be hairs, I'd have them all, by God,” and he put the hair into his bosom. Then in a sudden fury seized the landlord fiercely by the neck, and forced him to his knees; and foot on head ground his face savagely among the bones of his victims, where they lay thickest; and the assassin first yelled, then whined and whimpered, just as a dog first yells, then whines, when his nose is so forced into some leveret or other innocent he has killed.