"
The pathos of the chant almost made his listener shrink, so immediate and
searching was it. When the lament ceased, there was a long silence,
broken by Valmond.
"He was your brother, Parpon--how? Tell me about it."
The dwarf's eyes looked into the distance.
"It was in the far-off country," he said, "in the hills where the Little
Good Folk come. My mother married an outlaw. Ah, he was cruel, and an
animal! My brother Gabriel was born--he was a giant, his brain all
fumbling and wild. Then I was born, so small, a head as a tub, and long
arms like a gorilla. We burrowed in the hills, Gabriel and I. One day my
mother, because my father struck her, went mad, left us and came to--" He
broke off, pausing an instant. "Then Gabriel struck the man, and he died,
and we buried him, and my brother also left me, and I was alone. By and
by I travelled to Pontiac. Once Gabriel came down from the hills, and
Lajeunesse burnt him with a hot iron, for cutting his bellows in the
night, to make himself a bed inside them. To-day he came again to do some
terrible thing to the blacksmith or the girl, and you have seen--ah, the
poor Gabriel, and I killed him!"
"I killed him," said Valmond--"I, Parpon, my friend.
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