bathed in blood. At the end of the twelfth century thousands of
Albigenses were roasted for practising this doctrine. Of course, I
can't say that the Manicheans didn't abuse their cult, mostly made up of
devil worship, because we know very well they did.

"On this point I am not with them," he went on slowly, after a silence.
He was waiting till Mme. Carhaix, who had got up to remove the plates,
should go out of the room to fetch the beef.

"While we are alone," he said, seeing her disappear through the stairway
door, "I can tell you what they did. An excellent man named Psellus has
revealed to us, in a book entitled _De operatione Dæmonum_, the fact
that they tasted of the two excrements at the beginning of their
ceremonial, and that they mixed human semen with the host."

"Horrible!" exclaimed Carhaix.

"Oh, as they took both kinds of communion, they did better than that,"
returned Des Hermies. "They cut children's throats and mixed the blood
with ashes, and this paste, dissolved in liquid, constituted the
Eucharistic wine."

"You bring us right back to Satanism," said Durtal.

"Why, yes, as you see, I haven't strayed off your subject."

"I am sure Monsieur Des Hermies has been saying something awful,"
murmured Mme. Carhaix as she came in, bearing a platter on which was a
piece of beef smothered in vegetables.