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Show 25 of that churl! And you...for even repeating such an outrage I will beat you until your bones crumble into bits of scabrous rubble!" He advanced on me with a murderous look on his face. Something happened to me. Instead of cowering and sniveling away from him, I stood my ground. I straightened my body and stared him boldly in the eye, shouting, "Gast demands it!" in a voice which came out deeper than it had ever sounded before. Master Hermann stopped short. He gaped at me, too astonished to speak, his breath coming in harsh little puffs through his flabby lips. I kept my eyes fastened fiercely on his, and his glance began to waver. "All right," he growled, "if you build the fires and make the dough for the first baking before you go, I will see that the rest is taken care of somehow." I felt as though heavy chains were dropping off me. I felt my spirits rise and escape like the smoke from the oven. So that he wouldn't have to look at the triumph on my face, Master Hermann turned abruptly and stamped off to his quarters behind the bake shop. I leaped into the air and did a silly dance in which I tried to step on the tails of as many rats as I could outrun. I twirled and clapped my hands above my head, so that if anyone had seen me they would have thought I was out of my senses. I had won! I had forced my will - or Gast's will - on Master Hermann! I felt drunk with victory, Cast had said that we would do many things together - Gast and Geist - and at that moment if he had told me that we could climb over the gates of heaven hand in hand, I would have believed him, even if he wasn't a Christian. |