ply destroyed?"

"But I already told you. They are used to consummate infamous acts.
Listen," and Des Hermies took from the bell-ringers bookshelf the fifth
volume of the _Mystik_ of Goerres. "Here is the flower of them all:

"'These priests, in their baseness, often go so far as to
celebrate the mass with great hosts which then they cut through
the middle and afterwards glue to a parchment, similarly cloven,
and use abominably to satisfy their passions.'"

"Holy sodomy, in other words?"

"Exactly."

At this moment the bell, set in motion in the tower, boomed out. The
chamber in which Durtal and Des Hermies were sitting trembled and a
droning filled the air. It seemed that waves of sound came out of the
walls, unrolling in a spiral from the very rock, and that one was
transported, in a dream, into the inside of one of these shells which,
when held up to the ear, simulate the roar of rolling billows. Des
Hermies, accustomed to the mighty resonance of the bells at short range,
thought only of the coffee, which he had put on the stove to keep hot.

Then the booming of the bell came more slowly. The humming departed from
the air. The window panes, the glass of the bookcase, the tumblers on
the table, ceased to rattle and gave off only a tenuous tinkling.

A step was heard on the stair. Carhaix entered, covered with snow.

"Cristi, boys, it blows!" He shook himself, threw his heavy outer
garments on a chair, and extinguished his lantern. "There were blinding
clouds of snow whirling in between the sounding-shutters. I can hardly
see. Dog's weather. The lady has gone to bed? Good. But you haven't
drunk your coffee?" he asked as he saw Durtal filling the glasses.

Carhaix went up to the stove and poked the fire, then dried his eyes,
which the bitter cold had filled with tears, and drank a great draught
of coffee.

"Now. That hits the spot. How far had you got with your lecture, Des
Hermies?"

"I finished the rapid expose of Satanism, but I haven't yet spoken of
the genuine monster, the only real master that exists at the present
time, that defrocked abbe--"

"Oh!" exclaimed Carhaix. "Take care. The mere name of that man brings
disaster."

"Bah! Canon Docre--to utter his ineffable name--can do nothing to us. I
confess I cannot understand why he should inspire any terror. But never
mind. I should like for Durtal, before we hunt up the canon, to see your
friend Gevingey, who seems to be best and mos