"That gypsy girl you know, who comes every day to dance on the church square, in spite of the official's prohibition! She hath a demoniac goat with horns of the devil, which reads, which writes, which knows mathematics like Picatrix, and which would suffice to hang all Bohemia. The prosecution is all ready; 'twill soon be finished, I assure you! A pretty creature, on my soul, that dancer! The handsomest black eyes! Two Egyptian carbuncles! When shall we begin?"
The archdeacon was excessively pale.
"I will tell you that hereafter," he stammered, in a voice that was barely articulate; then he resumed with an effort, "Busy yourself with Marc Cenaine."
"Be at ease," said Charmolue with a smile; "I'll buckle him down again for you on the leather bed when I get home. But 'tis a devil of a man; he wearies even Pierrat Torterue himself, who hath hands larger than my own. As that good Plautus saith,-'~Nudus vinctus, centum pondo, es quando pendes per pedes~.'
The torture of the wheel and axle! 'Tis the most effectual! He shall taste it!"
Dom Claude seemed absorbed in gloomy abstraction. He turned to Charmolue,-"Master Pierrat--Master Jacques, I mean, busy yourself with Marc Cenaine."
"Yes, yes, Dom Claude. Poor man! he will have suffered like Mummol. What an idea to go to the witches' sabbath! a butler of the Court of Accounts, who ought to know Charlemagne's text; ~Stryga vel masea~!--In the matter of the little girl,--Smelarda, as they call her,--I will await your orders. Ah! as we pass through the portal, you will explain to me also the meaning of the gardener painted in relief, which one sees as one enters the church. Is it not the Sower? Hé! master, of what are you thinking, pray?"
Dom Claude, buried in his own thoughts, no longer listened to him. Charmolue, following the direction of his glance, perceived that it was fixed mechanically on the great spider's web which draped the window. At that moment, a bewildered fly which was seeking the March sun, flung itself through the net and became entangled there. On the agitation of his web, the enormous spider made an abrupt move from his central cell, then with one bound, rushed upon the fly, which he folded together with his fore antennae, while his hideous proboscis dug into the victim's bead. "Poor fly!" said the king's procurator in the ecclesiastical court; and he raised his hand to save it. The archdeacon, as though roused with a start, withheld his arm with convulsive violence.
"Master Jacques," he cried, "let fate take its course!" The procurator wheeled round in affright; it seemed to him that pincers of iron had clutched his arm. The priest's eye was staring, wild, flaming, and remained riveted on the horrible little group of the spider and the fly.