Now one of the hindmost would burl it onward with a kick, now another, amid screams of childish laughter, tripped headlong over the cord; now at the crossways they stopped to wrangle and question which way they should go, or whose turn it was to pull and whose to follow.

At last they started afresh with a whoop, the leader singing and all plucking the string to the cadence of the air.

Their plaything leapt and dropped, sprang forward, and lingered like a thing of life.

But it was no thing of life, as Tignonville saw with a shudder when they passed him.

The object of their sport was the naked body of a child, an infant! His gorge rose at the sight.