believed him already, finished, succeeded, by one of
those convulsive starts frequent in the last agony, in raising himself
to his feet for a few seconds; then, blind with wounds and loss of
blood, striking about his arms in the air as if to parry blows that were
no longer struck, he muttered these words, which came from his mouth,
accompanied by a crimson torrent: "Mercy! I am no poisoner. Mercy!" This
sort of resurrection produced so great an effect on the crowd, that for
an instant they fell hack affrighted. The clamor ceased, and a small
space was left around the victim. Some hearts began even to feel pity;
when the quarryman, seeing Goliath blinded with blood, groping before
him with his hands, exclaimed in ferocious allusion to a well-known
game: "Now for blind-man's-bluff."

Then, with a violent kick, he again threw down the victim, whose head
struck twice heavily on the pavement.

Just as the giant fell a voice from amongst the crowd exclaimed: "It is
Goliath! stop! he is innocent."

It was Father d'Aigrigny, who, yielding to a generous impulse, was
making violent efforts to reach the foremost rank of the actors in this
scene, and who cried out, as he came nearer, pale, indignant, menacing:
"You are cowards and murderers! This man is innocent. I know him. You
shall answer for his life."

These vehement words were received with loud murmurs.

"You know that poisoner," cried the quarryman, seizing the Jesuit by the
collar; "then perhaps you are a poisoner too.

"Wretch," exclaimed Father d'Aigrigny, endeavoring to shake himself
loose from the grasp, "do you dare to lay hand upon me?"

"Yes, I dare do anything," answered the quarryman.

"He knows him: he's a poisoner like the other," cried the crowd,
pressing round the two adversaries; whilst Goliath, who had fractured
his skull in the fall, uttered a long death-rattle.

At a sudden movement of Father d'Aigrigny, who disengaged himself from
the quarryman, a large glass phial of peculiar form, very thick, and
filled with a greenish liquor, fell from his pocket, and rolled close
to the dying Goliath. At sight of this phial, many voices exclaimed
together: "It is poison! Only see! He had poison upon him."

The clamor redoubled at this accusation, and they pressed so close to
Abbe d'Aigrigny, that he exclaimed: "Do not touch me! do not approach
me!"

"If he is a poisoner," said a voice, "no more mercy for him than for the
other."

"I a poisoner?" said t