“Let us see, let us try!” resumed the archdeacon briskly. “Were I to succeed, I should behold the blue spark flash from the head of the nail. Emen-H�tan! Emen-H�tan! That’s not it. Sig�ani!

Sig�ani! May this nail open the tomb to any one who bears the name of Phoebus! A curse upon it! Always and eternally the same idea!”

And he flung away the hammer in a rage. Then he sank down so deeply on the arm-chair and the table, that Jehan lost him from view behind the great pile of manuscripts. For the space of several minutes, all that he saw was his fist convulsively clenched on a book. Suddenly, Dom Claude sprang up, seized a compass and engraved in silence upon the wall in capital letters, this Greek word

ANArKH.