Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/395

Rh Ah! these, then, were the ends for which destiny had saved him!

Béjard fought, yelled for help, but completely occupied with their own distress, the fugitives pursued their course without bothering about this struggle. Laurent overpowered Béjard, clasped him in an implacable grip like that of a bulldog's jaws, of a vulture's claw, of a spider's tentacle, or of the sucker of an octopus.

Ah! he had flattered himself, the exactor, the extortioner, the dealer in souls, that he would survive this hecatomb of children! He had just reached safety, the scourge seemed to have spared him, when one more violent and more implacable than the flames was luckily on hand to supplement their blind clemency and restore to them the prey which they had allowed to escape.

As implacable as death itself, a final justiciary, Laurent dragged his culprit back to the Gehenna. In all Antwerp he was the only person who cold-bloodedly was going back to this hearth of horror. He intended to stay there with his condemned criminal. The idea of death had no terrors for him. Had he not felt himself go off deliciously a few minutes ago?

Béjard, guessing the horrible purpose of his executioner, screamed, bit, used all his strength, despair increasing his normal vigor tenfold.

From time to time he put up such resistance that Laurent could not succeed in advancing, and they fought in the one place. But the advantage always remained with Paridael and he kept victoriously pushing his captive before him, through all, over the slimy mass, flabby, charred matter in which one could hardly recognize human remains.