But all suddenly, at the very height of his exaltation, the cup from
which he had drunk slipped from his hand and rolled upon the
tesselated pavement of the temple, staining it in gouts and vivid
blotches of crimson.
"Hasten, ere I lose the power--I feel it checked. Poitou, De Sille,
Henriet, go bring hither from the White Tower the Scottish maids.
Run, dogs--or you die! Quick, Henriet! Good De Sille, quick! Fail not
your master now! It ebbs, it weakens--and it was so near completion.
Stay, O Barran, till I finish the sacrifice, and here at thy feet
offer up to thee the richest, and the fairest, and the noblest! Bring
hither the maidens! I tell you, bring them quickly!"
And the terrible Lord of Retz, exhausted with his own fury, cast
himself at the feet of the gigantic image, which, bending over him,
seemed with the same grimace sardonically to mock alike his exaltation
and his downfall.
But Laurence heard no more. For sense and feeling had wholly departed
from him, and he lay as one dead behind the door of the temple of
Barran-Sathanas, Lord of Evil, in the thrice-abhorrent Castle of
Machecoul.
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