revere and adore him. With them he rests from the tribulations of all
sorts--save one--that he has been subjected to. He would be perfectly
happy if he did not have to repulse the attacks launched at him almost
daily by the tonsured magicians of Rome."

"Why do they attack him?"

"A thorough explanation would take a long time. Johannes is commissioned
by Heaven to break up the venomous practises of Satanism and to preach
the coming of the glorified Christ and the divine Paraclete. Now the
diabolical Curia which holds the Vatican in its clutches has every
reason of self-interest for putting out of the way a man whose prayers
fetter their conjurements and neutralize their spells."

"Ah!" exclaimed Durtal, "and would it be too much to ask you how this
former priest foresees and checks these astonishing assaults?"

"No indeed. The doctor can tell by the flight and cry of certain birds.
Falcons and male sparrow-hawks are his sentinels. If they fly toward him
or away from him, to East or West, whether they emit a single cry or
many; these are omens, letting him know the hour of the combat so that
he can be on guard. Thus he told me one day, the sparrow-hawks are
easily influenced by the spirits, and he uses them as the hypnotist
makes use of somnambulism, as the spiritist makes use of tables and
slates."

"They are the telegraph wires for magic despatches."

"Yes. And of course you know that the method is not new. Indeed, its
origin is lost in the darkness of the ages. Ornithomancy is world-old.
One finds traces of it in the Holy Bible, and the Zohar asserts that one
may receive numerous notifications if one knows how to observe the
flight and distinguish the cries of birds."

"But," said Durtal, "why is the sparrow-hawk chosen in preference to
other birds?"

"Well, it has always been, since remotest antiquity, the harbinger of
charms. In Egypt the god with the head of a hawk was the one who
possessed the science of the hieroglyphics. Formerly in that country the
hierogrammatists swallowed the heart and blood of the hawk to prepare
themselves for the magic rites. Even today African chiefs put a hawk
feather in their hair, and this bird is sacred in India."

"How does your friend go about it," asked Mme. Carhaix, "raising and
housing birds of prey?--because that is what they are."

"He does not raise them nor house them. They nest in the high bluffs
along the Saone, near Lyons. They come and see him in time of need