ction, set up the great wooden passages
for the thunder; while the little pipes of pasteboard simulated the
sound of the human voice singing to the victorious notes of the long
metal trumpets. At times this also, as people heard night after night
those wandering sounds, seemed like the work of a madman, though they
awoke sometimes in wonder at snatches of a new, an unmistakable new
music. It was the triumph of all the various modes of the power of the
pipe, tamed, ruled, united. Only, on the painted shutters of the
organ-case Apollo with his lyre in his hand, as lord of the strings,
seemed to look askance on the music of the reed, in all the jealousy
with which he put Marsyas to death so cruelly.

Meantime, the people, even his enemies, seemed to have forgotten him.
Enemies, in truth, they still were, ready to take his life should the
opportunity come; as he perceived when at last he ventured forth on a
day of public ceremony. The bishop was to pronounce a blessing upon
the foundations of a new bridge, [73] designed to take the place of the
ancient Roman bridge which, repaired in a thousand places, had hitherto
served for the chief passage of the Yonne. It was as if the disturbing
of that time-worn masonry let out the dark spectres of departed times.
Deep down, at the core of the central pile, a painful object was
exposed--the skeleton of a child, placed there alive, it was rightly
surmised, in the superstitious belief that, by way of vicarious
substitution, its death would secure the safety of all who should pass
over.

There were some who found themselves, with a little surprise, looking
round as if for a similar pledge of security in their new undertaking.
It was just then that Denys was seen plainly, standing, in all
essential features precisely as of old, upon one of the great stones
prepared for the foundation of the new building. For a moment he felt
the eyes of the people upon him full of that strange humour, and with
characteristic alertness, after a rapid gaze over the grey city in its
broad green framework of vineyards, best seen from this spot, flung
himself down into the water and disappeared from view where the stream
flowed most swiftly below a row of flour-mills. Some indeed fancied
they had seen him emerge again safely on the deck of one of the great
boats, loaded with grapes and wreathed triumphantly with flowers like a
floating garden, which were then bringing down the vintage from the
country