"How long am I to live?"
"Now, hear me, God," screamed the monk. "Let not this man ever again know surcease from torment in bed, at board, in body or in mind. Let his lust devour him, let the worm burrow in his entrails, the maggot in his brain! May death seize and damnation wither him at the moment when he is nearest the achievement of his fondest hopes!"
Basil screamed him down.
An uncontrollable terror had seized him.
"Silence, beast, or I shall strangle you!"
"Libertine, traitor, assassin—may heaven's lightnings blast you—"
For a moment the two battled in a war of screeching blasphemy.
At the next moment the grate was flung into place, the light whisked and vanished, a door slammed and the Stygian blackness of the cell closed once more upon the moaning heap in its midst.
Basil's eyes gleamed like live coals as he turned to Maraglia, who, quaking and ashen, was babbling a prayer between white lips.
"Make an end of him!" he snarled. "He has lived too long. And now, in the devil's name, lead the way above!"