As Martin paused, the only sound to be heard in the apartment was the chattering of the king's teeth. The screen creaked repeatedly as though to suggest and to warn, but the king remained speechless and the implacable peasant resumed:
"Your Royal Highness was not brave enough to head the Revolution which you had incited. You fled, notwithstanding your offer to your august brother to share his fate. While abroad, you disregarded his orders and intrigued for the foreign invasion of your country and for the erection of your brother's scaffold. Have you forgotten the king's letter to the Prince of Condé? He disclaimed all responsibility for the invasion. 'Let there be no war!' he entreated 'Behead me rather.' But there was war and his head fell besides. Oh the blood!—in pools, in puddles, in the air, on the guillotine! a deluge of blood,—reeking, sickening, revolting! Do you not see it now? Look! It trickles from the ceiling and stains these walls!"
With frenzied indignation the old man continued to gaze at a vision that no other eyes beheld. His arm was thrust forward and his forefinger almost touched the king's forehead.
"The wretched queen, bleeding and headless, speaks through me. Listen to her, shrieking 'Cain, Cain!'"
The screen creaked as though animated by furious protests and the king remonstrated with what strength he could muster, while the affrighted dog barked timidly and hid himself in the bearskin under his master's bandaged feet.
"For a time the crime was sterile and the Corsican star lighted the French sky. During that period the innocent boy lived concealed, unknown. Your Royal Highness was the hope of many who were ignorant of the boy's existence. I placed faith in you. We believed that the feet of the Corsican colossus were of clay and must soon sink into the earth. And they did sink. Your Royal Highness seized the crown. But why do you even today contrive pitfalls for the orphaned heir and place arms in the hands of the iniquitous?"
The king, with folded and almost supplicating hands, seemed like a criminal imploring clemency, while tremors shook his head and convulsive breathing agitated his breast. Martin suddenly changed his attitude of pitiless accuser and dropped on his knees, saying gently:
"The archangel declares that it is not yet too late for repentance, but that the time is brief and fleeting. Oh, your Highness, I adjure you to refrain from being anointed. Let not the oil from the holy vials be poured sacrilegiously upon your head. Dare not desecrate the sacred altars by requiem masses for those who have not yet died! No crime is so great as profanation. The tree is accursed, and it shall be uprooted!"
In a prophetic frenzy, he continued:
"It shall be swept away! It shall perish! Uprooted in Italy, uprooted in Spain, uprooted shall it be in France and everywhere!—The canker spreads, rises from limbs to heart—The corroded flesh—Pray God for mercy!"