'To your task, Reburrus!' cried Vetranio, when the tumult was lulled;
'to your questions without delay! Behold the teacher with whom you are
to hold commune! Peruse carefully the parchment in your hand; question,
and question loudly--you speak to the apathetic dead!'
For some time before the disclosure of the corpse, the hunchback had
been seated apart at the end of the banqueting-hall opposite the black-
curtained recess, conning over the manuscript containing the list of
questions and answers which formed the impious dialogue he was to hold,
by the aid of his powers of ventriloquism, with the violated dead. When
the curtain was withdrawn he had looked up for a moment, and had greeted
the appearance of the sight behind it with a laugh of brutal derision,
returning immediately to the study of his blasphemous formulary which
had been confided to his care. At the moment when Vetranio's commands
were addressed to him he arose, reeled down the apartment towards the
corpse, and, opening the dialogue as he approached it, began in loud
jeering tones: 'Speak, miserable relict of decrepit mortality!'
He paused as he uttered the last word, and gaining a point of view from
which the light of the lamp fell full upon the solemn and stony features
of the corpse, looked up defiantly at it.
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