Sambuc opened the drawer of the table and took from it a large kitchen knife, the one that the household employed to slice their bacon.

“So, then, as you are a pig, I am going to stick you like a pig.”

He proceeded in a very leisurely manner, discussing with Cabasse, and Ducat the proper method of conducting the operation.  They even came near quarreling, because Cabasse alleged that in Provence, the country he came from, they hung pigs up by the heels to stick them, at which Ducat expressed great indignation, declaring that the method was a barbarous and inconvenient one.

“Bring him well forward to the edge of the table, his head over the tub, so as to avoid soiling the floor.”

They drew him forward, and Sambuc went about his task in a tranquil, decent manner.  With a single stroke of the keen knife he slit the throat crosswise from ear to ear, and immediately the blood from the severed carotid artery commenced to drip, drip into the tub with the gentle plashing of a fountain.  He had taken care not to make the incision too deep; only a few drops spurted from the wound, impelled by the action of the heart.  Death was the slower in coming for that, but no convulsion was to be seen, for the cords were strong and the body was utterly incapable of motion.  There was no death-rattle, not a quiver of the frame.  On the face alone was evidence of the supreme agony, on that terror-distorted mask whence the blood retreated drop by drop, leaving the skin colorless, with a whiteness like that of linen.  The expression faded from the eyes; they became dim, the light died from out them.

“Say, Silvine, we shall want a sponge, too.”

She made no reply, standing riveted to the floor in an attitude of unconsciousness, her arms folded tightly across her bosom, her throat constricted as by the clutch of a mailed hand, gazing on the horrible spectacle.  Then all at once she perceived that Charlot was there, grasping her skirts with his little hands; he must have awaked and managed to open the intervening doors, and no one had seen him come stealing in, childlike, curious to know what was going on.  How long had he been there, half-concealed behind his mother?  From beneath his shock of yellow hair his big blue eyes were fixed on the trickling blood, the thin red stream that little by little was filling the tub.  Perhaps he had not understood at first and had found something diverting in the sight, but suddenly he seemed to become instinctively aware of all the abomination of the thing; he gave utterance to a sharp, startled cry: 

“Oh, mammy! oh, mammy!  I’m ’fraid, take me away!”

It gave Silvine a shock, so violent that it convulsed her in every fiber of her being.  It was the last straw; something seemed to give way in her, the excitement that had sustained her for the last two days while under the domination of her one fixed idea gave way to horror.  It was the resurrection of the dormant woman in her; she burst into tears, and with a frenzied movement caught Charlot up and pressed him wildly to her heart.  And she fled with him, running with distracted terror, unable to see or hear more, conscious of but one overmastering need, to find some secret spot, it mattered not where, in which she might cast herself upon the ground and seek oblivion.