But the drunkard continues to shout full-throated, "To-morrow! To-morrow! D'you think things will always go on like that? You're fit for killing! To hell!"
Some people are impressed and disappear into the evening. Those who are marking time around the obscure fanatic are growling, "He's not only bad, he's mad, the dirty beast!"
"It's disgraceful," says the young curate.
Brisbille goes up to him. "You tell me, then, you, what'll happen very soon—Jesuit, puppet, land-shark! We know you, you and your filthy, poisonous trade!"
"Say that again!"
It was I who said that. Leaving Marie's arm instinctively I sprang forward and planted myself before the sinister person. After the horrified murmur which followed the insult, a great silence had fallen on the scene.
Astounded, and his face suddenly filling with fear, Brisbille stumbles and beats a retreat.
The crowd regains confidence, and laughs, and congratulates me, and reviles the back of the man who is sinking in the stream.
"You were fine!" Marie said to me when I took her arm again, slightly trembling.
I returned home elated by my energetic act, still all of a tremor, proud and happy. I have obeyed the prompting of my blood. It was the great ancestral instinct which made me clench my fists and throw myself bodily, like a weapon, upon the enemy of all.