It was far worse when the procurator of the king, having emptied upon a floor a certain bag filled with movable letters, which Djali wore round his neck, they beheld the goat extract with his hoof from the scattered alphabet the fatal name of Phœbus. The witchcraft of which the captain had been the victim appeared irresistibly demonstrated, and in the eyes of all, the gypsy, that ravishing dancer, who had so often dazzled the passers-by with her grace, was no longer anything but a frightful vampire.
However, she betrayed no sign of life; neither Djali’s graceful evolutions, nor the menaces of the court, nor the suppressed imprecations of the spectators any longer reached her mind.
In order to arouse her, a police officer was obliged to shake her unmercifully, and the president had to raise his voice,—
“Girl, you are of the Bohemian race, addicted to deeds of witchcraft. You, in complicity with the bewitched goat implicated in this suit, during the night of the twenty-ninth of March last, murdered and stabbed, in concert with the powers of darkness, by the aid of charms and underhand practices, a captain of the king’s arches of the watch, Phœbus de Châteaupers. Do you persist in denying it?”
“Horror!” exclaimed the young girl, hiding her face in her hands. “My Phœbus! Oh, this is hell!”
“Do you persist in your denial?” demanded the president coldly.
“Do I deny it?” she said with terrible accents; and she rose with flashing eyes.
The president continued squarely,—
“Then how do you explain the facts laid to your charge?”
She replied in a broken voice,—