There was in the accent a certitude, a conviction, an energy that reduced the tumults to silence.
"I was born on the first storey of rue Vieilhomme-Willeau, N°. 28, Barroue-Don in a room hung with red damask and adorned with menhirs; my father told my mother that I was dead, enveloped me in a napkin marked ‘LB,' and buried me alive in the garden."
A shudder of horror ran through the audience when they saw that the assurance of the accused grew with the terror of M. de Villefaramir.
"But how do you know all these details?" asked the president. "And are you not an ent or balrogue?"
"I will tell you, monsieur le président. In the garden where my father had just buried me, a balrogue had introduced himself who hated my father mortally, or immortally as I should say, and had long followed him with deadly intent. The balrogue assaulted him, and having wounded him, retrieved the box he had espied him to bury in the garden. Therein he found me, and he brought me home to Rogliano, where he raised me, though born to mortals, as a balrogue."
"But what about the ent?" inquired the president.
"That was just a ruse to obtain the greenbacks of Fangornes," replied Trascoletto.
