"_Nom de Dieu!_" Leclair kept monotonously repeating. "_Mais, nom de
Dieu!_ Ah, the pigs--ah, the sacred pigs!"
Disjointed words from the others--cries, oaths, jubilations--filled
the low-arched chamber, mingling in the stuffy air with lamp-smoke and
the dull scent of blood and dust and sweat.
Wheezing breath, wordless cries, grunts, strange laughter sounded.
And, withal, the major's hands and arms in one of the pits made a
dry, slithering slide and click as he kneaded, worked, and stirred the
gems, dredged up fistfuls and let them rain down crepitantly, again.
The sight was one very hard to grasp with any concrete understanding,
harder still to render in cold words. At first, it gave only a
confused impression of colors, like those in some vivid Oriental
rug. The details escaped observation; and these changed, too, as the
swaying of the lamps, in excited hands, shifted position.
A shimmer of unearthly light played over the pits, like the thin,
colored flames at the edge of a driftwood fire. Soft, opalescent
gleams were blent with prismatic blues, greens, crimsons. Melting
violets were stabbed through by hard yellows and penetrant purples.
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