“It is merely that one cannot help wondering,” said Hortense, “that even you should have had no more sense or good taste—”
So for an instant the sweet voices were like a choir of birds in fourfold descant: and they thrilled him with remembered melodies, vituperative and plaintive and now strangely dear. Then came the changing. All, Florian saw in that queer bluish light, were pitiably eager to talk about Melior, and to explain to him exhaustively just what a fool he had been, and how exactly like him was such behavior. But the magic of Hoprig’s revivifying ring was spent: and color and flexibility were going away from the pretty bodies, so that their lips could but move stiffly and feebly now, without making the least noise. It was really heart-breaking, Florian thought, to see these lovely women congeal into stone, and be thus petrified upon the verge of candors which would have completely freed their minds.
Then that strange throbbing bluish light was gone: and Florian was alone in the dark Chapel where only three dim lamps were glowing like red stars. An ordinary person would have estimated that this gloom did but very inadequately prefigure Florian’s future. But a Puysange knew perfectly where next to apply for help against any and all saints.
23.
The Collyn in the Pot
LORIAN went from the Chapel to the secret chamber which nobody else cared to enter. At this last pinch he was resolved to enlist in his defence that power which was at least as strong as Hoprig’s power. So Florian carried with him wine and wafers.
He opened a wicker basket, wherein was an earthen pot. Inside this pot lay, upon strips of white and black wool, a small, very smooth dun-colored creature that had the appearance of a cat. Florian with a green-handled little knife pricked the end of his ring-finger until he got the necessary blood; and presently the Collyn of Puysange had opened her yellow eyes and was licking daintily her lips so as to lose no drop of the offering. Florian fed her also with the wine and wafers.
“Whither,” asked Florian then, “will the staff carry Melior?”
The Collyn answered, in a tiny voice: “To the hut which is between Amneran and Morven. For that hut is the outpost of romance, and is as near as the demon’s staff may dare approach to the hermitage of Holy Hoprig.”