"Which shall we begin with?"
"With the liver."
"Very well," said Réné, and he fastened the bird down to two rings attached to the little altar, so that the creature, turned on its back, could only struggle, without stirring from the spot.
Catharine opened its breast with a single stroke of her knife; the fowl uttered three cries, and, after some convulsions, expired.
"Always three cries!" said Catharine; "three signs of death."
She then opened the body.
"And the liver inclining to the left, always to the left,—a triple death, followed by a downfall. ’T is terrible, Réné."
"We must see, madame, whether the presages from the second will correspond with those of the first."
Réné unfastened the body of the fowl from the altar and tossed it into a corner; then he went to the other, which, foreseeing what its fate would be by its companion's, tried to escape by running round the cell, and finding itself pent up in a corner flew over Réné's head, and in its flight extinguished the magic taper Catharine held.
"You see, Réné, thus shall our race be extinguished," said the queen; "death shall breathe upon it, and destroy it from the face of the earth! Yet three sons! three sons!" she murmured, sorrowfully.