Now they come into the market-place, on one side whereof was the master church of the town, which was strongly built and with a tall tower to it, but was not very big, and but little adorned.  Over against it they saw the sign of the Flower de Luce, a goodly house and great.  Thitherward they turned; but in the face of the hostelry amidmost the place was a thing which Roger pointed at with a grin that spoke as well as words; and this was a high gallows-tree furnished with four forks or arms, each carved and wrought in the fashion of the very bough of a tree, from which dangled four nooses, and above them all was a board whereon was written in big letters the dry tree.  And at the foot of this gallows were divers folk laughing and talking.

So Ralph understood at once that those four men whom he had seen led away bound yesterday should be hanged thereon; so he stayed a franklin who was passing by, and said to him, “Sir, I am a stranger in the town, and I would know if justice shall be done on the four woodmen to-day.”  “Nay,” said the man, “but to-morrow; they are even now before the judges.”

Then said Roger in a surly voice, “Why art thou not there to look on?” “Because,” quoth the man, “there is little to see there, and not much more to hearken.  The thieves shall be speedily judged, and not questioned with torments, so that they may be the lustier to feel what the hangman shall work on them to-morrow; then forsooth the show shall be goodly.  But far better had it been if we had had in our hands the great witch of these dastards, as we looked to have her; but now folk say that she has not been brought within gates, and it is to be feared that she hath slipped through our fingers once more.”

Roger laughed, and said:  “Simple are ye folk of the Burg and know nought of her shifts.  I tell thee it is not unlike that she is in the Burg even now, and hath in hand to take out of your prison the four whom ye have caught.”

The franklin laughed scornfully in his turn and said:  “If we be simple, thou art a fool merely:  are we not stronger and more than the Dry Tree?  How should she not be taken?  How should she not be known if she were walking about these streets?  Have we no eyes, fool-carle?” And he laughed again, for he was wroth.

Ralph hearkened, and a kind of fear seemed griping his heart, so he asked the franklin:  “Tell me, sir, are ye two speaking of a woman who is Queen of these strong-thieves?” “Yea,” said he, “or it might better be said that she is their goddess, their mawmet, their devil, the very heart and soul of their wickedness.  But one day shall we have her body and soul, and then shall her body have but an evil day of it till she dieth in this world.”

“Yea, forsooth, if she can die at all,” quoth Roger.

The franklin looked sourly on him and said:  “Good man, thou knowest much of her, meseemeth—­Whence art thou?” Said Roger speedily:  “From Hampton under Scaur; and her rebel I am, and her dastard, and her runaway.  Therefore I know her forsooth.”