Everyone laughed, except Sergius Thord. He had fallen into a heavy, brooding silence, his head sunk on his breast, his wild hair falling forward like a mane, and his right hand clenched and resting on the table.
“Sergius!” called Lotys.
He did not answer.
“He is in one of his far-away moods,”—said one of the men next to Axel Regor,—“It is best not to disturb him.”
Paul Zouche, however, had no such scruples. “Sergius!” he cried,—“Come out of your cloud of meditation! Drink to the health of our three new comrades!”
All the members of the company filled their glasses, and Thord, hearing the noise and clatter, looked up with a wild stare.
“What are you doing?” he asked slowly;—“I thought some one spoke of Cain killing Abel!”
“It was I,” said Graub—“I spoke of it—irreverently, I fear,—but the story itself is irreverent. The notion that ‘God,’ should like roast meat is the height of blasphemy!”
Zouche burst into a violent fit of laughter. But Thord went on talking in a low tone, as though to himself.
“Cain killing Abel!” he repeated—“Always the same horrible story is repeated through history—brother against brother,—blood crying out for blood—life torn from the weak and helpless body—all for what? For a little gold,—a passing trifle of power! Cain killing Abel! My God, art Thou not yet weary of the old eternal crime!”