"Should I succumb, pick some athélas from the secret garden I cultivate on the rat droppings in the west corner of my cell," said the abbé. "Crush it and moisten it with the appallingly poor wine they serve here, and then apply it to my forehead, saying the rhyme:
When the soufflé noir is overdone,
and the shadow of death trasks Carcassonne
and all lights perish avec grand fracas,
come athélas! Come athélas!
Life for the dying,
In vin ordinaire lying.
Repeat the rhyme now!"
Gamgès did so, having instantly committed it to memory.
Alas, they reckoned not with the new-old calendar instituted by Aragon XIX, which caused the date to arrive some five days before they expected it.
So it was quite sudden and unexpected when the pallor of death whelmed Frodia's face like a frost in spring. His eyes gazed forth as if seeing things far away.
