Something was being burned on the altar now, something which gave off a thick, delicious smoke that muddled our thoughts. The rooster was produced and displayed and then certain beastly things happened to it which, in an ordinary time and place, I dare say we should have prevented. The priest turned round to us, arms raised, his gown now kilted up above his navel to keep it clear of the bloodstains. George turned completely around, his face sunk in his hands. Sam did not move but I could hear him whimpering very quietly, piteously. I am, as I have often pointed out, a mature and sensible man; moreover I had personally copied out the Ritual and knew what was coming – I was a little surprised, therefore, to find that I had crossed the fingers of both my hands.

It cannot have been Eric’s voice which began to bellow Great Salute and Imprecation of S. Sécaire: so little a man could never have whooped and bayed in so disgusting a fashion, nor can I believe that the rocks beneath the chapel could have shifted and groaned so hideously as they seemed to. In that thick, stupefying atmosphere, amidst those atavistic animal noises, nothing was real and when Eric seemed to rise some eight inches from the floor my fuddled surprise was only that I had not seen that he was barefooted and had not known that his right foot was horribly deformed. He was stuttering out the list of things which S. Sécaire offers to those against whom he is invoked when I saw his face blacken. He fell towards us on his face. His face, when it struck the stone floor, made a sound which I have been trying to forget ever since. It was inches from my shoe. The silk robe was almost up to his armpits; his body was not good to look at. He went on making odd noises – how was I to know that he was dead?

In any case, it was just then that the door burst open and all sorts of Centeniers, Vingteniers, Connétable’s officers, aye and even members of the dread Paid Police themselves, thronged in and arrested every one of us again and again.