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When Bos saw those rosy lips smiling and the black eyes beaming beneath the scarlet capulet, he felt his heart gnawed with jealousy, bounded into the hall and cried out with a terrible voice: “Out of this, ye traitors! I am master here, Bos de Bénac.”
“Beggar and liar!” said the lord of Angles. “We saw Bos fall dead on the banks of the Egyptian stream, Who art thou, old leper? Thy face is black like those of the damned Saracens. You are all in league with the devil; it is the evil spirit who has led thee hither. Drive him out, and loose the dogs upon him.”
But the tender-hearted lady begged them to have mercy on the unhappy madman. Bos, pricked by his conscience, believing that everybody knew his sin, fled with his face in his hands, in horror of himself, and stayed not until he had reached a solitary bog. Night came, and the bell of Mount Campana began to toll. He heard the wheels of the faeries of the Bergonz humming. The giant clad in fire appeared on the peak of Anie. Strange images, like the dreams of a sick man, rose in his brain. The breath of the demon was on him. A legion of fantastic visages galloped through his head to the rustle of infernal wings, and the ravishing smile of the lovely lady pricked him to the heart like the point of a poniard. The little black man appeared near him, and said to him: “How, Bos, art thou not invited to the wedding of thy wife? The lord of Angles espouses her at this very hour. Friend Bos, he is not courteous!”
“Accursed of God, what art thou here to do?”
“Thou art scarcely grateful; I have led thee out of Egypt, as Moses did his loafing Israelites, and I have transported thee, not in forty years but in a day, into the promised land. Poor fool, whose amusement is tears! Dost thou wish thy wife? Give me thy faith, nothing more. Indeed, thou art right; to-morrow, if thou art not frozen, and if thou pleadest humbly with the lord of Angles, he will make thee keeper of his kennels; it is a fine situation. To-night, sleep on the snow, good knight. Yonder, where the lights are, the lord of Angles embraces thy wife.”
Bos was stifling, and thought he was going to die. “Oh Lord my God,” said he, falling on his knees, “deliver me from the tempter!” And he burst into tears.