I was conscious of a taste in it, a strange acrid taste.

Why, it was poor wine, turned sour; it should go back to-morrow; that fool Jonah was a fool in all things; and I stood disgraced for offering this acrid stuff to a friend.

And he gave it to the King! It was the cruellest chance.
Why---- Suddenly, when I had gulped down but one good mouthful, I saw M.de Perrencourt lean right across the table.

Yet I saw him dimly, for my eyes seemed to grow glazed and the room to spin round me, the figures at the table taking strange shapes and weird dim faces, and a singing sounding in my ears, as though the sea roared there and not on Dover beach.

There was a woman's cry, and a man's arm shot out at me.