Then, with a violent kick, he again threw down the victim, whose head struck twice heavily on the pavement.
Just as the giant fell a voice from amongst the crowd exclaimed: "It is
Goliath! stop! he is innocent."
It was Father d'Aigrigny, who, yielding to a generous impulse, was making violent efforts to reach the foremost rank of the actors in this scene, and who cried out, as he came nearer, pale, indignant, menacing: "You are cowards and murderers! This man is innocent. I know him. You shall answer for his life."
These vehement words were received with loud murmurs.
"You know that poisoner," cried the quarryman, seizing the Jesuit by the collar; "then perhaps you are a poisoner too.
"Wretch," exclaimed Father d'Aigrigny, endeavoring to shake himself loose from the grasp, "do you dare to lay hand upon me?"
"Yes, I dare do anything," answered the quarryman.
"He knows him: he's a poisoner like the other," cried the crowd, pressing round the two adversaries; whilst Goliath, who had fractured his skull in the fall, uttered a long death-rattle.
At a sudden movement of Father d'Aigrigny, who disengaged himself from the quarryman, a large glass phial of peculiar form, very thick, and filled with a greenish liquor, fell from his pocket, and rolled close to the dying Goliath. At sight of this phial, many voices exclaimed together: "It is poison! Only see! He had poison upon him."
The clamor redoubled at this accusation, and they pressed so close to Abbe d'Aigrigny, that he exclaimed: "Do not touch me! do not approach me!"