"You won't speak to me, eh? Won't you? Curse you! Pass me on the other
side--so! Look at me. I am the worst man in the world, eh? Judas is
nothing--no! Ack, what are you, to turn your back on me? Listen to me!
You, there, Muroc, with your charcoal face, who was it walk thirty miles
in the dead of winter to bring a doctor to your wife, eh? She die, but
that is no matter--who was it? It was Luc Pomfrette. You, Alphonse
Durien, who was it drag you out of the bog at the Cote Chaudiere? It was
Luc Pomfrette. You, Jacques Baby, who was it that lied for you to the
Protestant girl at Faribeau? Just Luc Pomfrette. You two, Jean and
Nicolas Mariban, who was it lent you a hunderd dollars when you lose all
your money at cards? Ha, ha, ha! Only that beast Luc Pomfrette! Mother
of Heaven, such a beast is he--eh, Limon Rouge?--such a beast that used
to give your Victorine little silver things, and feed her with bread and
sugar and buttermilk pop. Ah, my dear Limon Rouge, how is it all
different now!"

He raised the bottle and drank long from the ragged neck. When he took
it away from his mouth not much more than half remained in the quart
bottle. Blood was dripping upon his beard from a cut on his lip, and
from there to the ground.

"And you, M'sieu' Bourienne," he cried hoarsely, "do I not remember that
dear M'sieu' Bourienne, when he beg me to leave Pontiac for a little
while that I not give evidence in court against him? Eh bien! you all
walk by me now, as if I was the father of smallpox, and not Luc
Pomfrette--only Luc Pomfrette, who spits at every one of you for a pack
of cowards and hypocrites."

He thrust the bottle inside his coat, went to the door, flung it open
with a bang, and strode out into the street, muttering as he went. As