Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/130

106 human form lying on the earth rattled in its throat again. Gwynplaine felt some one touch him gently on the shoulder. It was the wapentake. Gwynplaine knew that meant that he was to descend. He obeyed. He descended the stairs step by step. They were very narrow, each eight or nine inches in height. There was no hand-rail. The descent required caution. Two steps behind Gwynplaine followed the wapentake, holding up his iron weapon; and at the same distance behind the wapentake, the justice of the quorum.

As he descended the steps, Gwynplaine felt an indescribable extinction of hope. There was death in every step. With each one that he descended a ray of the light within him died. Growing paler and paler, he reached the bottom of the stairs. The spectre lying chained to the four pillars still rattled in its throat.

A voice in the shadow said, "Approach!"

It was the sheriff addressing Gwynplaine. Gwynplaine took a step forward. "Closer," said the sheriff.

The justice of the quorum murmured in the ear of Gwynplaine so gravely that there was solemnity in the whisper: "You are before the sheriff of the county of Surrey."

Gwynplaine advanced towards the victim extended in the centre of the cell. The wapentake and the justice of the quorum remained where they were, allowing Gwynplaine to advance alone. When he reached the miserable object which he had hitherto seen only from a distance, but which was a living man, his fear increased to terror. The man who was chained there was quite naked, except for that hideously modest rag which might be called the vineleaf of punishment, the succingulum of the Eomans, and the christipannus of the Goths, which the old Gallic jargon converted into cripagne. Christ wore only that shred upon the cross.