"Can you pay for it?" asked the innkeeper suspiciously.
Gautran threw down a gold piece. The innkeeper took it, bit it, turned it over and over, rang it on the wooden table, and then set the food before Gautran.
The murderer ate ravenously; it was the first sufficient meal he had eaten for days. The innkeeper gave him his change, and he ordered more meat and brandy, and paid for them. While he was disposing of this, two men came up, eyed him, and passed into the inn; Gautran was eating at a little table in the open air.
Presently the innkeeper came out and looked at him; then the innkeeper's wife did the same; then other men and women came and cast wrathful glances upon him.
At first he was not conscious that he was being thus observed, he was so ravenously engaged; but his hunger being appeased, he raised his head, and saw seven or eight persons standing at a little distance from him, and all with their eyes fixed upon his face.
"What are you staring at?" he cried. "Did you never see a hungry man eat before?"
They did not answer him, but stood whispering among themselves.
The idea occurred to Gautran to take away with him a supply of food, and he called to the innkeeper to bring it to him. Instead of doing so, the innkeeper removed the plates and glasses in which the meal had been served. Having done this, he joined the group, and stood apart from Gautran, without addressing a word to him.
"Do you hear me?" shouted Gautran. "Are you deaf and dumb?"
"Neither deaf nor dumb," replied the innkeeper; "we hear you plain enough."
"Bring me the bread and meat, then," he said.
"Not another morsel," said the innkeeper. "Be off with you."
"You will get none here--nor would you have had bite or sup if I had known."
"Known what?" demanded Gautran fiercely. "Is not my money as good as another man's?"
If this did not convince him that his name was known and execrated, what next transpired would have enlightened him. The innkeeper's wife came out with a glass and two plates in her hands.
"Are these the things," she asked of her husband, "the monster has been eating out of?"
She dashed them to the ground and shivered them to pieces, and the onlookers applauded the act.
"Why do you do that, Mistress?" cried Gautran.