For a fantastical instant I was tempted to let him have his way. I was enraged, and disgusted. More than that, I was suddenly seized with a longing to loot. It would be a wonderful opportunity. What risk should we run? None at all. It would simply be one more picturesque scene to add to our store of memories. At that moment, the servant girl happened to cross the bottom of the room. Her dress fell into lines which suggested the rounded form beneath. Bouillon was looking at her too, and Guillaumin also. His big red nose was quivering. The blood rushed to my head, and desire took possession of me. We all three exchanged a look of feverish bestiality. Plunder the old man, violate the girl. Nothing could be easier--some strange madness urged us on--the beast in us was raising its head. A vision of Jeannine passed through my mind, but it held no power to restrain me, for was it not purely a physical impulse? It did not count in my eyes. No one would ever know anything about it, I repeated to myself. Why not indulge this whim? It was a sinister moment. We had each taken a step towards the girl, whose face contracted. CHAPTER IX AT PEACE WITH MYSELF And then, after all, something stopped me, something I had never experienced before. Was it prejudice? Or moral restraint? I had no time to examine my feelings. Was it self-respect? Yes, that, without doubt. No one would ever know anything about it, but I should know about it myself! "Make up your mind!" I said to the man. Had he an inkling of the danger he had been in? In any case he acquiesced without a word, and took the note, to which I added a louis. I commandeered the rest of the bread, and three dozen eggs, which the girl was to boil till they were hard. She bustled about, but it took some time. I paid for everything at three times its value, without turning a hair. The old man got a second louis, and to show his satisfaction, threw in a packet of salt! I will not dwell upon our return journey. Bouillon had hung a cord round his neck with the poultry dangling at each end of it, in two bunches. They struggled and made a deafening din and twice over almost tripped him up. He gravely warned them: "If you do that a third time, I shall lose my temper!" Thirty yards farther on, he stopped. "Got a pin?" I handed him one without understanding why he wanted it. He turned away. I became aware of a wild flapping, and then a faint rattle. "Next please!" "I'll learn 'em not to be so bloomin' fond o' flies!" He pricked them behind the head, one after the other, sighing. "If only they was some o' them Bosches!" * * * * * When he entered the stable in front of us half an hour later, with the chaplet of chickens round his neck, the men were stupefied. Then an uproar arose. "Oh! the cannibal!" cried Judsi. "Good biz; grub at last!"