"Alas," moaned the wretched man, "what a terrible law that law is, good father! What a fate is mine! If I remain at the bottom of the tank I shall drown, however innocent I may be! And if I float, I shall be sentenced and executed as a thief!" "The judgment of the Eternal, my dear son, can never go wrong." Already the Franks were raising the slave in their arms and were about to cast him into the tank when the clerk cried out: "And the consecration of the water!" And stepping towards the slave who moaned aloud, the clerk placed upon the Gaul's lips a silver cross that he carried around his neck and said: "Kiss this cross, my dear son." The young slave devoutly kissed the symbol of the death of the Friend of the sorrowful, while the clerk pronounced aloud the formula adopted by the Church: "Oh, thou who art about to undergo the trial of cold water, I adjure thee, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, in the name of the indivisible Trinity, in the name of all the angels, archangels, principalities, powers and dominions, virtues, thrones, cherubim and seraphim, if thou art guilty, that this water may reject thee, without any sorcery preventing it from so doing; and Thou Lord Jesus Christ, give us such a sign of Thy majesty that if this man has committed the crime, he be rejected by this water to the praise and the glory of Thy holy name, and to the end that all may recognize that Thou art God. And you, water! Water created by the omnipotent Father for the needs of man, I adjure you, in the name of the indivisible Trinity which allowed the people of Israel to cross the Red Sea, dry-footed, I adjure you, water, to refuse to accept this body if he has eased his shoulders of the burden of good works. I so order you, water, confident in the virtue of God alone in whose name I demand obedience from you. Amen." The consecration being finished by the clerk, the Franks raised over their heads the Gallic slave who screamed and struggled to free himself, and hurled him violently into the center of the tank amidst the loud guffaw of the count and the witnessing Franks. "Never yet did otter, leaping from a willow tree after a carp, make so beautiful a plunge," exclaimed the good seigneur count holding his sides; he was laughing so heartily. The witnessing Franks also laughed and roared, and crowded around the tank saying to one another: "He will float--the scamp!" "He will not float--he is not guilty!" "How he beats the water!" "And that gurgling sound--glou--glou--glou!" "Sounds like a bottle that is emptying itself--" "There he comes to the surface!" "No, he sinks again!" Presently the slave rose and succeeded in keeping himself for a moment on the surface. His face was livid and distorted, his hair streaming, his eyes rolling back like the eyes of a man who has escaped drowning by some desperate effort. He beat the water with the only arm that was free and cried: