Werewolf of Paris Read Online Free Page B

him here to starve? Good, then, he would starve. Better so. He was not afraid to die.
    Time passed. He was weak from lack of food. He heard sounds above him. A jingle of keys. Someone was in the chamber above him. He heard faint whispered voices. He was about to shout out: “Poton!” thinking it must be his brother. Then he bethought himself. He would wait and see. How his jailers would laugh at him if he made that mistake. He waited. It was not Poton. It was young Pitaval.
    â€œHere’s food for you, my solitary monk! Do you want a prayer stool? Or a lute to twang on?”
    Jehan made no answer. “Ach! if I could lay my hands on your fat neck,” he thought. The sharp fragrance of roasted fowl came to his nostrils. Something fell from above and landed on the grating over the water-hole. The footsteps passed on. A door banged shut.
    His hands went to seize the roast. No. He would not touch a bite of it. He would starve himself to death. He was thirsty too. His throat ached. He would have a drink of water, that could not harm, and would serve to help him resist the pangs of hunger. He found the dipper in the dark and slipped it through the grating. The water was cool and sweet.
    That meat was tempting. That roasted crust of fat fowl, how often he had bitten through it. Why, only the other night as a monk at table with the Pitavals…but he had forborne helping himself too liberally. As a monk, it behooved him to be frugal. He regretted that he had not eaten more of it. What could it have harmed had he eaten a larger portion? The table had been loaded down with food when they had risen to go to bed. There was fowl and venison. And a dish of chopped greens and cold prawns in a sauce of vinegar. Good, that! His mouth watered. In the two days that he had been locked in the other cell, they had fed him nothing but bread, dry bread.
    Why was he thinking so much of food? Food was a matter of the past for him. He meant to die. He was through with food. But this was agony with that roasted fowl filling the cell with its odor.
    He would kill himself and end this torture. If only he could lift up that grating and drown himself in the water. But the grating was fastened too securely. If he could hitch himself up the wall and cast himself down. But while he could reach the opposite walls, they were tantalizingly beyond the reach of a good muscular purchase. Had they measured him to make sure of adding that extra torture to this prison?
    He beat his head against the wall. He made it bloody by hammering against the grating. He fainted. But when he came to, the first thing that struck him was the odor of roasted meat. Damn that meat. He would get rid of it. He would throw it down into the cesspool. Yes, that was it. Down the cesspool, and away with all thoughts of food. Out of reach, out of mind.
    The fowl was a large one. A goose, no doubt. It would not go into the opening. He tore it into pieces, dismembered it and put the separate pieces down. He heard them fall far below. The great bulk of the fowl, however, stuck in the pipe. He had to push it down. He pushed it down as far as he could and there it remained stuck fast.
    There, that was that. Good God! What had he done? He had cast away his only food. He was about to cry out in despair. No, he must not make any sound. That would be shameful. They were waiting somewhere for him to cry out, that they might laugh at him and taunt him. No, never a sound must come from his lips. He stilled the cries in his throat, pushed his hands into his mouth to deaden any sound that might strive to issue from his agonized body.
    He found himself licking his hands, greedily licking his fingers, smacking his lips, searching with his tongue between his fingers to find yet another bit of grease remaining from the fowl he had thrown away. Perhaps he could still reach that big piece that he had had so much difficulty pushing down into the drain. He put his arm down. He could just feel the