“Not I. But they are marvellous—marvellous. I think——”
The Friar drew back. Thomas edged in to see better, and half opened his mouth.
“Speak,” said Stephen, who had been watching him. “We are all in a sort doctors here.”
“I would say then”—Thomas rushed at it as one putting out his life’s belief at the stake—“that these lower shapes in the bordure may not be so much hellish and malignant as models and patterns upon which John has tricked out and embellished his proper devils among the swine above there!”
“And that would signify?” said Roger of Salerno sharply.
“In my poor judgment, that he may have seen such shapes—without help of drugs.”
“Now who—who”—said John of Burgos, after a round and unregarded oath—“has made thee so wise of a sudden, my Doubter?”
“I wise? God forbid! Only John, remember—one winter six years ago—the snowflakes melting on your sleeve at the cookhouse-door. You showed me them through a little crystal, that made small things larger.”
“Yes. The Moors call such a glass the Eye of Allah,” John confirmed.
“You showed me them melting—six-sided. You called them, then, your patterns.”