“I talked with the devil.”
A muffled rumbling follows. The abbot jumps from his place and roars furiously:
“Then let him sit on your neck! Eh, Pierre, Jules, tie him down as fast as you can until morning. And the other one, too. And in the morning—in the morning, take him away to the city, to the Judges. I don’t know their accursed city laws”—cries the abbot in despair—“but they will hang you, Haggart! You will dangle on a rope, Haggart!”
Khorre rudely pushes aside the young fisherman who comes over to him with a rope, and says to Desfoso in a low voice:
“It’s an important matter, old man. Go away for a minute—he oughtn’t to hear it,” he nods at Haggart.
“I don’t trust you.”
“You needn’t. That’s nothing. Noni, there is a little matter here. Come, come, and don’t be afraid. I have no knife.”
The people step aside and whisper. Haggart is silently waiting to be bound, but no one comes over to him. All shudder when Mariet suddenly commences to speak:
“Perhaps you think that all this is just, father? Why, then, don’t you ask me about it? I am his wife. Don’t you believe that I am his wife? Then I will bring little Noni here. Do you want me to bring little Noni? He is sleeping, but I will wake him up. Once in his life he may wake up at night in order to say that this man whom you want to hang in the city is his father.”
“Don’t!” says Haggart.