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Coiled in spires, folded in layers, knotted on themselves, or "extended long and large," they weltered in motionless heaps shapes more fantastic in ghoulish, blasting dismay, than ever wine-sodden brain of exhausted poet fevered into misbeing.
"Hm! how strange these Englishmen are!" mused Chauvelin; "this so-called hero is nothing but a wine-sodden brute, who seeks to nerve himself for a trying ordeal by drowning his faculties in brandy... Perhaps after all he doesn't care!..."
Among such a crowd a wine-sodden and decrepit old man was not likely to attract particular attention. He sprawled over the table close to one of the windows which commanded a view of the side passage leading to the rear of the building.
"I had no thought of disparagement for Dea Flavia's genius. The gods forbid!" he added with mock fervour. "Then dost deserve that I force thee down to thy knees," retorted Hortensius, not yet mollified, "to make public acknowledgment of Dea Flavia's beauty, her talents and her virtues, and public confession of thine own unworthiness in allowing her hallowed name to pass thy wine-sodden lips."
It was too much for his wine-sodden nerves. His eyes turned, his body slackened, the point of his rapier flagged floorward. God had given me my second. I bounded at him, not straight, but somewhat to his left. He recovered, but, anticipating a straight rush, thrust clean out on the expected line of my leap. His blade ran through between my coat and waistcoat, and the guard thumped sore on my ribs.
I never knew a man so wine-sodden and so sharp-witted. "That's all very well, Stratton," he said, "between ourselves. Very unfortunate and all that sort of thing. But it doesn't satisfy Justin evidently; and we've got to put a different look on it if we can, before we go before a jury: You see " He seemed to be considering and rejecting unpalatable phrases "They won't understand."
It is true that starvation is unpleasant and that hanging is reported to be even less agreeable. But just now these considerations are irrelevant." Staring into the darkness he fought the battle out. Squarely he faced the issue; for that instant he saw Francois Villon as the last seven years had made him, saw the wine-sodden soul of Francois Villon, rotten and weak and honeycombed with vice.
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