Easy it was for a man's soul to pass from such a
sepulchre, and, flitting low over remembered fields, to come upon
the garden lands of Paradise and find eternal ease.
And the wind blew and blew.
In a tavern of foul repute three men were lapping gin. Their names
were Joe and Will and the gypsy Puglioni; none other names had they,
for of whom their fathers were they had no knowledge, but only dark
suspicions.
Sin had caressed and stroked their faces often with its paws, but
the face of Puglioni Sin had kissed all over the mouth and chin.
Their food was robbery and their pastime murder. All of them had
incurred the sorrow of God and the enmity of man. They sat at a
table with a pack of cards before them, all greasy with the marks of
cheating thumbs. And they whispered to one another over their gin,
but so low that the landlord of the tavern at the other end of the
room could hear only muffled oaths, and knew not by Whom they swore
or what they said.
These three were the staunchest friends that ever God had given unto
a man. And he to whom their friendship had been given had nothing
else besides, saving some bones that swung in the wind and rain, and
an old torn coat and iron chains, and a soul that might not go free.
But as the night wore on the three friends left their gin and stole
away, and crept down to that graveyard where rested in his sepulchre
Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence.
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