"When I left you, I went home, put it in a huge cage of twisted wicker and closed my eyes, to see what would happen. I kept my fingers crooked for action, though. I did not close my eyes for more than ten seconds. There was a cracking sound and when I opened my eyes, the cage was a tangle of splinters and the bird was preening its wings to fly." "But it can't fly!" "I'm not so sure of that," the hunchback answered, "but it had no chance, my fingers were round its throat in a second. I had hard work to hold it and I am three, yes, ten times as strong as you. "Then I put it in a wire frame in which a badger had once been kept. Its amber eyes glared, but it made no resistance. Again I closed my eyes, to tempt it, and when I opened them again, beak and talon had riven the frame apart and the body was rasping through. I grappled it again. It pecked at me, almost reaching my eyes, but my hands are strong, and it could not get away." He looked down at his hands with a touch of pride. "There's not another man in the village could have done it," he said. "I believe that," said Horace, whose hand was still sore and bruised from the grip of the day before. "What did you do then?" "I went to my brother, the blacksmith. "'Pierre!' I said to him, 'get up! Get up at once and light the fire in your forge. We have a demon to cage.' "'Are the Germans here?' he asked. "'Come at once,' I said, 'you are needed.' "So, when he came out, I showed him the bird and told him the words of the master's wife. "'What do you want me to do?' he asked. "'Make me a cage of bands of twisted iron,' I said, 'which would defy the beak and talon of Jupiter's eagle that wields the thunderbolts, and finish it before daybreak.' "So, all the long night through, I sat there in the forge, while the fetters were being made to hold this evil thing a prisoner. There is no bolt or screw in the cage, every bar is welded on the other, save for one intricate opening. Just before daylight it was done. "'Good,' said I, 'now come with me to the curé, Pierre, and we will speak to him.'" "To the curé?" queried Horace, "why?" "That was what my brother asked," the hunchback answered, "but to the church we went. The curé was there already, praying at the altar, though it was yet more than an hour before the service. "'Bless me this cage, Monsieur le Curé,' I said to him, 'it has been made to hold an evil spirit, a demon, a German demon.' "The curé looked at the eagle and crossed himself. "'It is ill to traffic with demons, Croquier,' he said to me, 'but I have never heard of anything made by God or man which was the worse for a blessing. Give me the cage and I will bless it before the altar, as you ask.'