_Te Deum laudamus_!

The chant went up from the black masses of men and women kneeling
in the cathedral, like a sudden breaking out of light in
darkness, and the silence was shattered as by a peal of thunder.
The voices floated up with the clouds of incense that had begun
to cast thin bluish veils over the fanciful marvels of the
architecture, and the aisles were filled with splendor and
perfume and light and melody. Even at the moment when that music
of love and thanksgiving soared up to the altar, Don Juan, too
well bred not to express his acknowledgments, too witty not to
understand how to take a jest, bridled up in his reliquary, and
responded with an appalling burst of laughter. Then the Devil
having put him in mind of the risk he was running of being taken
for an ordinary man, a saint, a Boniface, a Pantaleone, he
interrupted the melody of love by a yell, the thousand voices of
hell joined in it. Earth blessed, Heaven banned. The church was
shaken to its ancient foundations.

_Te Deum laudamus_! cried the many voices.

"Go to the devil, brute beasts that you are! _Dios! Dios! Garajos
demonios!_ Idiots! What fools you are with your dotard God!" and a
torrent of imprecations poured forth like a stream of red-hot
lava from the mouth of Vesuvius.

"_Deus Sabaoth! . . . Sabaoth_!" cried the believers.

"You are insulting the majesty of Hell," shouted Don Juan,
gnashing his teeth. In another moment the living arm struggled