inhabit them, somehow fascinating us, enchanting us, charming us in spite
of the pitiful scene that was now under our eyes, for the wives of the
little dead men had found the crushed and shapeless bodies and were
crying over them, and sobbing and lamenting, and a priest was kneeling
there with his hands crossed upon his breast, praying; and crowds and
crowds of pitying friends were massed about them, reverently uncovered,
with their bare heads bowed, and many with the tears running down--a
scene which Satan paid no attention to until the small noise of the
weeping and praying began to annoy him, then he reached out and took the
heavy board seat out of our swing and brought it down and mashed all
those people into the earth just as if they had been flies, and went on
talking just the same.

An angel, and kill a priest! An angel who did not know how to do wrong,
and yet destroys in cold blood hundreds of helpless poor men and women
who had never done him any harm! It made us sick to see that awful deed,
and to think that none of those poor creatures was prepared except the
priest, for none of them had ever heard a mass or seen a church. And we
were witnesses; we had seen these murders done and it was our duty to
tell, and let the law take its course.

But he went on talking right along, and worked his enchantments upon us
again with that fatal music of his voice. He made us forget everything;
we could only listen to him, and love him, and be his slaves, to do with
us as he would. He made us drunk with the joy of being with him, and of
looking into the heaven of his eyes, and of feeling the ecstasy that
thrilled along our veins from the touch of his hand.