They moved. The milk directly attracted their attention, and as soon as they had tasted it they became aware of its presence. Lifting up their pointed heads to receive what was offered them, they directed their eyes toward the vase. When they had once seen it, they began to untwine their coils and to crawl toward it, like young girls hurrying to the bath. The mossy bench was near the rock. To remove her from the grotto Henri had to displace the vase. He had courage enough to wait until the last viper had gone into it. Seizing it then, he placed it gently on the ground. Passing his arms under the inanimate body of the girl, he sought to carry her away. Just then she recovered from her fainting. Aware that she was in the arms of a strange man, she made a violent effort to get away, and cast herself from her bed on the ground to escape from this embrace. In her disorder and agitation, and contest with Maulear, who sought to restrain her, in the half obscurity of the grotto her foot touched the coil of vipers. She fell shrieking on his bosom. He left the grotto with his precious burden. Her cry had revealed to him the new misfortune, to which at first he paid no attention, but which now terrified him. The cry awoke Scorpione. His ear being familiarized with all the tones of his mistress, he would have recognized this amid a thousand. Quicker than the thunderbolt he rushed from the house, and stood at the door just when Maulear seized her. Scorpione fancied the stranger bore away his foster-sister, and rushed on him as furiously as he would have done on a midnight robber. He seized Maulear in the breast with his right hand, the nails of which were trenchant as a needle, while with the left he sought to thrust the dagger in his heart. Aminta herself was however a shield to his bosom, and he clasped her closely. In the appearance of the horrid monster, Maulear almost forgot the perilous situation from which he had just extricated himself. For a time he fancied he was under the spell of some terrible vision, being unable to believe one person could unite so many deformities. With terror then he saw Scorpione seize on him and seek to snatch the body of Aminta from him. A second cry of Aminta, less distinct however than the first, changed the scene and recalled two of the actors to their true interest. "Wretch!" said Maulear to Tonio, "if you wish gold I will give it you. Wait however till I resuscitate this girl." "Aminta needs the care of none, when I am by!" said Scorpione. "She is my mistress, my sister: I watch over her." "At all events you watch over her very badly," said Henri, placing Aminta on a broken stone. "I found her asleep here, with the vipers nestling in her bosom."