"The goblins, however, seemed to be expecting something, for they kept turning their heads every moment. My late father looked in the same direction. What was that he saw on the hill-side? A mighty devil, built like the rest, but as long as the steeple St. Michel, which we passed awhile back. Instead of the pointed bonnet, he wore a three-horned hat, topped with a big thorn bush in place of a feather. He had but one eye, blackguard that he was, but that was as good as a dozen. He was doubtless the drum-major of the regiment, for he held in his hand a saucepan twice as big as our maple-sugar kettles, which hold twenty gallons, and in the other hand a bell-clapper, which no doubt the dog of a heretic had stolen from some church before its consecration. He pounded on his saucepan, and all the scoundrels began to laugh, to jump, to flutter, nodding to my late father as if inviting him to come and amuse himself with them.
"'You'll wait a long time, my lambs,' thought my late father to himself, his teeth chattering in his head as if he had the shaking fever—'you will wait a long time, my gentle lambs. I'm not in any hurry to quit the good Lord's earth to live with the goblins!'
"Suddenly the tall devil began to sing a hellish round, accompanying himself on the saucepan, which he beat furiously, and all the goblins darted away like lightning—so fast, indeed, that it took them less than a minute to go all the way around the island. My poor late father was so stupefied by the hubbub that he could not remember more than three verses of the song, which ran like this:
"Here's the spot that suits us well
When it gets too hot in hell—
Toura-loura;
Here we go all round,
Hands all round,
Here we go all round.
"Come along and stir your sticks,
You jolly dogs of heretics—
Toura-loura;
Here we go all round,
Hands all round,
Here we go all round.
"Room for all, there's room for all
That skim or wriggle, bounce or crawl—
Toura-loura;
Here we go all round,
Hands all round,
Here we go all round."
"My late father was in a cold sweat; he had not yet, however, come to the worst of it."
Here José paused. "But I am dying for a smoke, and, with your permission, gentlemen, I'll light my pipe."
"Quite right, my dear José," answered D'Haberville. "For my own part, I am dying for something else. My stomach declares that this is dinner-hour at college. Let's have a bite to eat."