A mysterious disease, known as the scabies, had
broken out among the Russian apostles. The yacht of the American
millionaire, Mr. van Koppen, arrived that day; there was nothing
startling in this since he visited the island year after year at the
same season; but why should she collide with a fishing-boat at the
moment of anchoring?
And from the Old Town came news of a portentous fowl which had suddenly
assumed the plumage of the male sex. It was a hen renowned, hitherto,
for her temperate and normal habits and, as it happened, known by sight
to the local parish priest, who, horrified at the transformation of the
feathered monster and mindful of the Papal Bull NE NIMIS NOCEANT NOBIS
which enjoins upon Christians the duty of destroying all unnatural
productions however generated, incontinently ordered it to be put out
of the way. But the destruction of this androgyne proved an arduous
task. It was reported that the creature fought for its life with the
energy of a demon, crowing vigorously the while and laying, in the very
act of death, an egg--an egg of spheroidal form, bluish in colour, and
apparently hard-boiled--an egg which the Chief Medical Officer of Health
had no great difficulty in recognizing as that of a cockatrice.
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