Page:Harris Dickson--The black wolf's breed.djvu/246

220 were slipped away, and after awhile as silently returned to their places.

Sacrament of passion! In one of them was bound the mutilated corpse of my queenly wife, her fingers hacked off and her ears torn out for the gems which had decked them. Upon my left sat little Celia. But for one lurid stripe of crimson across her girlish breast she might well have been asleep, so lightly death had touched her. Behind them I saw a tall, gaunt woman, wearing a man's helm and carrying a pike. She directed the men. This was a woman's hellish work.

Ortez rose with studied politeness:

"Your wife and child, d'Artin; our charming family reunion would be incomplete without them." And the woman laughed aloud.

My brain burned; something seemed to strain and give way. I lost all sense of pain, all capacity to suffer. How long this lasted I know not. When the revelry was at its height, when the wine had dulled every human instinct of these rough "Soldiers of the Church," Ortez raised his voice above the tumult; he knew his men were in the humour for a diversion he was about to propose.

"Now comrades," he said, "for the crowning joy of this most blessed day, now for our last sacred duty to Mother Church."

He came round the table and taking a cord from the hands of one of his men he threw the noose over my head. With feet bound together, hands free, I stood amongst them, this throng of butchers, each with the