Jacques continued to drink, holding the bottle in his left hand; suddenly, he closed and tightened the fingers of his right hand with a convulsive movement; his hair clung to his icy forehead, and his countenance revealed an agony of pain.  Yet he continued to drink; only, without removing his lips from the neck of the bottle, he lowered it for an instant, as if to recover breath.  Just then, Jacques met the sardonic look of Morok, who continued to drink with his accustomed impassibility.  Thinking that he saw the expression of insulting triumph in Morok’s glance, Jacques raised his elbow abruptly, and drank with avidity a few drops more.  But his strength was exhausted.  A quenchless fire devoured his vitals.  His sufferings were too intense, and he could no longer bear up against them.  His head fell backwards, his jaws closed convulsively, he crushed the neck of the bottle between his teeth, his neck grew rigid, his limbs writhed with spasmodic action, and he became almost senseless.

“Jacques, my good fellow! it is nothing,” cried Morok, whose ferocious glance now sparkled with diabolical joy.  Then, replacing his bottle on the table, he rose to go to the aid of Ninny Moulin, who was vainly endeavoring to hold Sleepinbuff.

This sudden attack had none of the symptoms of cholera.  Yet terror seized upon all present; one of the women was taken with hysterics, and another uttered piercing cries and fainted away.  Ninny Moulin, leaving Jacques in the hands of Morok, ran towards the door to seek for help,—­when that door was suddenly opened, and the religious writer drew back in alarm, at the sight of the unexpected personage who appeared on the threshold.

CHAPTER XXIL

Memories.

The person before whom Ninny Moulin stopped in such extreme astonishment was the Bacchanal Queen.

Pale and wan, with, hair in disorder, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and clothed almost in rags, this brilliant and joyous heroine of so many mad orgies was now only the shadow of her former self.  Misery and grief were impressed on that countenance, once so charming.  Hardly had she entered the room, when Cephyse paused; her mournful and unquiet gaze strove to penetrate the half-obscurity of the apartment, in search of him she longed to see.  Suddenly the girl started, and uttered a loud scream.  She had just perceived, at the other side of a long table, by the bluish light of the punch, Jacques struggling with Morok and one of the guests, who were hardly able to restrain his convulsive movements.

At this sight Cephyse, in her first alarm, carried away by her affection, did what she had so often done in the intoxication of joy and pleasure.  Light and agile, instead of losing precious time in making a long circuit, she sprang at once upon the table, passed nimbly through the array of plates and bottles, and with one spring was by the side of the sufferer.