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Touch not that which is no concern of thine. But what is
this boon, rogue, which you would crave?"
"I have in my shoe, most worshipful sir, a strip of wood which
belonged once to the bark wherein the blessed Paul was dashed up
against the island of Melita. I bought it for two rose nobles
from a shipman who came from the Levant. The boon I crave is
that you will place it in my hands and let me die still grasping
it. In this manner, not only shall my own eternal salvation be
secured, but thine also, for I shall never cease to intercede for
thee."
At the command of the bailiff they plucked off the fellow's shoe,
and there sure enough at the side of the instep, wrapped in a
piece of fine sendall, lay a long, dark splinter of wood. The
archers doffed caps at the sight of it, and the bailiff crossed
himself devoutly as he handed it to the robber.
"If it should chance," he said, "that through the surpassing
merits of the blessed Paul your sin-stained soul should gain a
way into paradise, I trust that you will not forget that
intercession which you have promised.


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