And the skulls turned from side to side as before.... And with their former noise, peeping like little red rags out of the grinning teeth, rapid tongues lisped how marvellously, how inimitably the immortal ... yes, immortal ... singer had rendered that last trill!
WORKMAN. Why do you come crawling up to us? What do ye want? You're none of us.... Get along!
MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. I am one of you, comrades!
THE WORKMAN. One of us, indeed! That's a notion! Look at my hands. D'ye see how dirty they are? And they smell of muck, and of pitch--but yours, see, are white. And what do they smell of?
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS (_offering his hands_). Smell them.
THE WORKMAN (_sniffing his hands_). That's a queer start. Seems like a smell of iron.
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Yes; iron it is. For six long years I wore chains on them.
THE WORKMAN. And what was that for, pray?
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Why, because I worked for your good; tried to set free the oppressed and the ignorant; stirred folks up against your oppressors; resisted the authorities.... So they locked me up.
THE WORKMAN. Locked you up, did they? Serve you right for resisting!
THE SAME WORKMAN TO ANOTHER. I say, Pete.... Do you remember, the year before last, a chap with white hands talking to you?
THE FIRST WORKMAN. They're going to hang him to-day, I heard say; that's the order.
THE SECOND WORKMAN. Did he keep on resisting the authorities?
THE SECOND WORKMAN. Ah!... Now, I say, mate, couldn't we get hold of a bit of the rope they're going to hang him with? They do say, it brings good luck to a house!
THE FIRST WORKMAN. You're right there. We'll have a try for it, mate.
The last days of August.... Autumn was already at hand.
The sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain, without thunder or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.
The garden in front of the house glowed and steamed, all filled with the fire of the sunset and the deluge of rain.
She was sitting at a table in the drawing-room, and, with persistent dreaminess, gazing through the half-open door into the garden.
I knew what was passing at that moment in her soul; I knew that, after a brief but agonising struggle, she was at that instant giving herself up to a feeling she could no longer master.