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The sun was an hour high, and in Angers the shops and booths, after the

early fashion of the day, were open or opening Through all the gates

country folk were pressing into the gloomy streets of the Black Toith

milk and fruit; and at doors and s housewives cheapened fish, or

chaffered over the fowl for the pot For ibbets in the Place Ste-Croix: gaunt gibbets, high and black and

twofold, each, with its dangling ropes, like a double note of

interrogation

But gibbets round and noose was so sled almost before he knew it The

sooner, then, the paniers were eates, the better he, for one, would be pleased In the

Men cried their wares in lowered

voices, and tarried but a little for the oldest custo the buyers hastened to shut theain; the bolder, who ventured to the Place to confirm the

rumour with their eyes, talked in corners and in lanes, avoided the open,

and eyed the sinister preparations fros

which stood before the cathedral affronting the sunlight with their gaunt

black shapes lay across the length and breadth of Angers Even in the

corners where men whispered, even in the cloisters where er, the stillness of fear ruled all Whatever Count

Hannibal had it in his mind to tell the city, it seemed unlikely--and