The Infant's Skull; Or, The End of the World. A Tale of the Millennium
Page 11
CHAPTER IV.
GREGORY THE HOLLOW-BELLIED.
Driven by the gale, the snow continued to fall, when suddenly Yvon'snostrils were struck by the exhalations emitted by frying meat. The odorchimed in with the devouring appetite that was troubling his senses, andat least bestowed back upon him the instinct of seeking to satisfy hishunger. He stood still, whiffed the air hither and thither like a wolfthat from afar scents carrion, and looked about in order to ascertain bythe last glimmerings of the daylight where he was. Yvon was at thecrossing of a path in the forest that led from the little village ofOrmesson. The road ran before a tavern where travelers usually put upfor the night. It was kept by a serf of the abbey of St. Maximim namedGregory, and surnamed the Hollow-bellied, because, according to him,nothing could satisfy his insatiable appetite. An otherwise kind-heartedand cheerful man, the serf often, before these distressful times, andwhen Yvon carried his tithe of game to the castle, had accommodatedlyoffered him a pot of hydromel. A prey now to the lashings of hunger andexasperated by the odor of fried meat which escaped from the tavern,Yvon carefully approached the closed door. In order to allow the smoketo escape, Gregory had thrown the window half open without fear of beingseen. By the light of a large fire that burned in the hearth, Yvon sawGregory seated on a stool placidly surveying the broiling of a largepiece of meat whose odor had so violently assailed the nostrils of thefamishing forester.
To Yvon's great surprise, the tavern-keeper's appearance had greatlychanged. He was no longer the lean and wiry fellow of before. Now hisgirth was broad, his cheeks were full, wore a thick black beard andtinkled with the warm color of life and health. Within reach of thetavern-keeper lay a cutlass, a pike and an ax--all red with blood. Athis feet an enormous mastiff picked a bone well covered with meat. Thespectacle angered the forester. He and his family could have lived awhole day upon the remnants left by the dog; moreover, how did thetavern-keeper manage to procure so large a loin? Cattle had become sodear that only the seigneurs and the ecclesiastics could afford topurchase any; beef cost a hundred gold sous, sheep a hundred silversous! A sense of hate rose in Yvon's breast against Gregory whom he haduntil then looked upon very much as a friend. The forester could nottake his eyes from the meat, thinking of the joy of his family if hewere to return home loaded with such a booty. For a moment Yvon wastempted to knock at the door of the serf and demand a share, at leastthe chunks thrown at the dog. But judging the tavern-keeper by himself,and noticing, moreover, that the former was well armed, he reflectedthat in days like those bread and meat were more precious than gold andsilver; to request Gregory the Hollow-bellied to yield a part of hissupper was folly; he would surely refuse, and if force was attempted hewould kill the intruder. These thoughts rapidly succeeded one another inYvon's troubled brain. To add to his dilemma, his presence was scentedby the mastiff who, at first, growled angrily without, however, droppinghis bone, and then began to bark.
At that moment Gregory was removing the meat from the spit. "What's thematter, Fillot? Be brave, old boy! We shall defend our supper. You arefurnished with good strong jaws and fangs, I with weapons. Fear not. Noone will venture to enter. So be still, Fillot! Lie down and keepquiet!" But so far from lying down and keeping quiet, the mastiffdropped his bone, stood up, and approaching the window where Yvon stood,barked louder still. "Oh, oh!" remarked the tavern-keeper depositing themeat in a large wooden platter on the table. "Fillot drops a bone tobark ... there must be someone outside." Yvon stepped quickly back, andfrom the dark that concealed him he saw Gregory seize his pike, throwthe window wide open and leaning out call with a threatening voice: "Whois there? If any one is in search of death, he can find it here." Thedeed almost running ahead of the thought, Yvon raised his bow, adjustedan arrow and, invisible to Gregory, thanks to the darkness without, tookstraight aim at the tavern-keeper's breast. The arrow whizzed; Gregoryemitted a cry followed by a prolonged groan; his head and bust fell overthe window-sill, and his pike dropped on the snow-covered ground. Yvonquickly seized the weapon. It was done none too soon. The furiousmastiff leaped out of the window over his dead master's shoulders andmade a bound at the forester. A thrust of the pike nailed the faithfulbrute to the ground. Yvon had committed the murder with the ferocity ofa famished wolf. He appeased his hunger. The dizziness that had assailedhis head vanished, his reason returned, and he found himself alone inthe tavern with a still large piece of meat beside him,--more than halfof the original chunk.
Feeling as if he just woke from a dream, Yvon looked around and feltfrozen to the marrow. The light emitted by the hearth enabled him to seedistinctly among the bloody remnants near where the mastiff had beengnawing his bone, a human hand and the trunk of a human arm. Horrifiedas he was, Yvon approached the bleeding members.
There was no doubt. Before him lay the remains of a human body. Thesurprising girth that Gregory the Hollow-bellied had suddenly developedcame to his mind. The mystery was explained. Nourished by human flesh,the monster had been feeding on the travelers who stopped at his place.The roast that had just been hungrily swallowed by Yvon proceeded from arecent murder. The forester's hair stood on end; he dare not looktowards the table where still lay the remains of his cannibal supper. Hewondered how his mouth did not reject the food. But that first andcultivated sense of horror being over, the forester could not but admitto himself that the meat he had just gulped down differed little frombeef. The thought started a poignant reflection: "My son, his wife andchildren are at this very hour undergoing the tortures of hunger; minehas been satisfied by this food; however abominable it may be, I shallcarry off the rest; the same as I was at first ignorant of what it wasthat I ate, my family shall not know the nature of the dish.... I shallat least have saved them for a day!" The reasoning matured intoresolution.
As Yvon was about to quit the tavern with his load of human flesh, thegale that had been howling without and now found entrance through thewindow, violently threw open the door of a closet connecting with theroom he was in. The odor of a charnel house immediately assailed theforester's nostrils. He ran to the hearth, picked up a flaming brand,and looked into the closet. Its naked walls were bespattered with blood;in a corner lay a heap of dried twigs and leaves used for kindling afire and from beneath them protruded a foot and part of a leg. Yvonscattered the heap of kindling material with his feet ... they hid arecently mutilated corpse. The penetrating smell obviously escaped froma lower vault. Yvon noticed a trap door. Raising it, there rose soputrid an odor that he staggered back; but driven despite himself tocarry his investigation to the end, he approached the flaming brand tothe opening and discovered below a cavern that was almost filled withbones, heads and other human members, the bloody remnants of thetravelers whom Gregory the Hollow-bellied had lived upon. In order toput an end to the horrible spectacle, Yvon hurled his flaming brand intothe mortuary cellar; it was immediately extinguished; for a moment theforester remained in the dark; he then stepped back into the main room;and overcoming a fresh assault of human scruple, darted out with theremains of the roast in his bag, thinking only of his famishing family.
Without, the gale blew violently; its rage seemed to increase. The moon,then at its fullest, cast enough light, despite the whirls of snow, toguide Yvon's steps. He struck the road to the Fountain of the Hinds inhaste, moving with firm though rapid strides. The infernal food he hadjust partaken of returned to him his pristine strength. About twoleagues from his hut, he stopped, struck with a sudden thought. Themastiff he had killed was enormous, fleshy and fat. It could furnish hisfamily with food for at least three or four days. Why had he forgottento bring it along? Yvon turned back to the tavern, long though the roadwas. As he approached the house of Gregory he noticed a great brilliancyfrom afar and across the falling snow. The light proceeded from the doorand window of the tavern. Only two hours before when he left, the hearthwas extinct and the place dark. Could someone have gone in afterwardsand rekindled the fire? Yvon crept near the house hoping to carry offthe dog without attracting notice, but v
oices reached him saying:
"Friends, let us wait till the dog is well roasted."
"I'm hungry! Devilish hungry!"
"So am I ... but I have more patience than you, who would have eaten thedainty raw.... Pheu! What a smell comes from that charnel room! And yetthe door and window are open!"
"Never mind the smell!... I'm hungry!"
"So, then, Master Gregory the Hollow-bellied slaughtered the travelersto rob them, I suppose.... One of them must have been beforehand withhim and killed him.... But the devil take the tavern-keeper! His dog isnow roasted. Let's eat!"
"Let's eat!"