THE ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT

By J. Sheridan LeFanu

_Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu_

 The Cock and Anchor Torlogh O'Brien The Home by the Churchyard Uncle Silas Checkmate Carmilla The Wyvern Mystery Guy Deverell Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery The Chronicles of Golden Friars In a Glass Darkly The Purcell Papers The Watcher and Other Weird Stories A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories Madam Crowl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery Green Tea and Other Stones Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius Best Ghost Stories of J. S. LeFanu The Best Horror Stories The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories Ghost Stories and Mysteries The Hours After Midnight J. S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries Ghost and Horror Stones Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery

The Room in the Dragon Volant

_Prologue_

_The curious case which I am about to place before you, is referredto, very pointedly, and more than once, in the extraordinary Essay uponthe Drug of the Dark and the Middle Ages, from the pen of DoctorHesselius_. 

_This Essay he entitles_ Mortis Imago, _and he, therein, discusses the_Vinum letiferum, _the_ Beatifica, _the_ Somnus Angelorum, _the_ HypnusSagarum, _the_ Aqua Thessalliae, _and about twenty other infusions anddistillations, well known to the sages of eight hundred years ago, andtwo of which are still, he alleges, known to the fraternity of thieves, and, among them, as police-office inquiries sometimes disclose to thisday, in practical use_. 

_The Essay, _ Mortis Imago, _will occupy, as nearly as I can atpresent calculate, two volumes, the ninth and tenth, of the collectedpapers of Dr. Martin Hesselius_. 

_This Essay, I may remark in conclusion, is very curiously enriched bycitations, in great abundance, from medieval verse and prose romance, some of the most valuable of which, strange to say, are Egyptian_. 

_I have selected this particular statement from among many casesequally striking, but hardly, I think, so effective as mere narratives;in this irregular form of publication, it is simply as a story that Ipresent it_. 

Chapter I

ON THE ROAD

In the eventful year, 1815, I was exactly three-and-twenty, and had justsucceeded to a very large sum in consols and other securities. The firstfall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to English excursionists, anxious, let us suppose, to improve their minds by foreign travel; andI--the slight check of the "hundred days" removed, by the genius ofWellington, on the field of Waterloo--was now added to the philosophicthrong. 

I was posting up to Paris from Brussels, following, I presume, the routethat the allied army had pursued but a few weeks before--more carriagesthan you could believe were pursuing the same line. You could not lookback or forward, without seeing into far perspective the clouds of dustwhich marked the line of the long series of vehicles. We wereperpetually passing relays of return-horses, on their way, jaded anddusty, to the inns from which they had been taken. They were arduoustimes for those patient public servants. The whole world seemed postingup to Paris. 

I ought to have noted it more particularly, but my head was so full ofParis and the future that I passed the intervening scenery with littlepatience and less attention; I think, however, that it was about fourmiles to the frontier side of a rather picturesque little town, the nameof which, as of many more important places through which I posted in myhurried journey, I forget, and about two hours before sunset, that wecame up with a carriage in distress. 

It was not quite an upset. But the two leaders were lying flat. Thebooted postilions had got down, and two servants who seemed very muchat sea in such matters, were by way of assisting them. A pretty littlebonnet and head were popped out of the window of the carriage indistress. Its _tournure_, and that of the shoulders that alsoappeared for a moment, was captivating: I resolved to play the part ofa good Samaritan; stopped my chaise, jumped out, and with my servant lenta very willing hand in the emergency. Alas! the lady with the prettybonnet wore a very thick black veil. I could see nothing but the patternof the Brussels lace as she drew back. 

A lean old gentleman, almost at the same time, stuck his head out of thewindow. An invalid he seemed, for although the day was hot he wore ablack muffler which came up to his ears and nose, quite covering thelower part of his face, an arrangement which he disturbed by pulling itdown for a moment, and poured forth a torrent of French thanks, as heuncovered his black wig, and gesticulated with grateful animation. 

One of my very few accomplishments, besides boxing, which was cultivatedby all Englishmen at that time, was French; and I replied, I hope andbelieve grammatically. Many bows being exchanged, the old gentleman'shead went in again, and the demure, pretty little bonnet once moreappeared. 

The lady must have heard me speak to my servant, for she framed herlittle speech in such pretty, broken English, and in a voice so sweet, that I more than ever cursed the black veil that baulked my romanticcuriosity. 

The arms that were emblazoned on the panel were peculiar; I rememberespecially one device--it was the figure of a stork, painted in carmine, upon what the heralds call a "field or. " The bird was standing upon oneleg, and in the other claw held a stone. This is, I believe, the emblemof vigilance. Its oddity struck me, and remained impressed upon mymemory. There were supporters besides, but I forget what they were. Thecourtly manners of these people, the style of their servants, theelegance of their traveling carriage, and the supporters to their arms, satisfied me that they were noble. 

The lady, you may be sure, was not the less interesting on that account. What a fascination a title exercises upon the imagination! I do not meanon that of snobs or moral flunkies. Superiority of rank is a powerfuland genuine influence in love. The idea of superior refinement isassociated with it. The careless notice of the squire tells more uponthe heart of the pretty milk-maid than years of honest Dobbin's manlydevotion, and so on and up. It is an unjust world!

But in this case there was something more. I was conscious of beinggood-looking. I really believe I was; and there could be no mistakeabout my being nearly six feet high. Why need this lady have thanked me?Had not her husband, for such I assumed him to be, thanked me quiteenough and for both? I was instinctively aware that the lady was lookingon me with no unwilling eyes; and, through her veil, I felt the power ofher gaze. 

She was now rolling away, with a train of dust behind her wheels in thegolden sunlight, and a wise young gentleman followed her with ardenteyes and sighed profoundly as the distance increased. 

I told the postilions on no account to pass the carriage, but to keep itsteadily in view, and to pull up at whatever posting-house it shouldstop at. We were soon in the little town, and the carriage we followeddrew up at the Belle Étoile, a comfortable old inn. They got out of thecarriage and entered the house. 

At a leisurely pace we followed. I got down, and mounted the stepslistlessly, like a man quite apathetic and careless. 

Audacious as I was, I did not care to inquire in what room I should findthem. I peeped into the apartment to my right, and then into that on myleft. _My_ people were not there. I ascended the stairs. Adrawing-room door stood open. I entered with the most innocent air inthe world. It was a spacious room, and, beside myself, contained but oneliving figure--a very pretty and lady-like one. There was the verybonnet with which I had fallen in love. The lady stood with her backtoward me. I could not tell whether the envious veil was raised; she wasreading a letter. 

I stood for a minute in fixed attention, gazing upon her, in vague hopethat she might turn about and give me an opportunity of seeing herfeatures. She did not; but with a step or two she placed herself beforea little cabriole-table, which stood against the wall, from which rosea tall mirror in a tarnished frame. 

I might, indeed, have mistaken it for a picture; for it now reflected ahalf-length portrait of a singularly beautiful woman. 

She was looking down upon a letter which she held in her slenderfingers, and in which she seemed absorbed. 

The face was oval, melancholy, sweet. It had in it, nevertheless, afaint and undefinably sensual quality also. Nothing could exceed thedelicacy of its features, or the brilliancy of its tints. The eyes, indeed, were lowered, so that I could not see their color; nothing buttheir long lashes and delicate eyebrows. She continued reading. She musthave been deeply interested; I never saw a living form so motionless--Igazed on a tinted statue. 

Being at that time blessed with long and keen vision, I saw thisbeautiful face with perfect distinctness. I saw even the blue veins thattraced their wanderings on the whiteness of her full throat. 

I ought to have retreated as noiselessly as I came in, before mypresence was detected. But I was too much interested to move from thespot, for a few moments longer; and while they were passing, she raisedher eyes. Those eyes were large, and of that hue which modern poets term"violet. "

These splendid melancholy eyes were turned upon me from the glass, witha haughty stare, and hastily the lady lowered her black veil, and turnedabout. 

I fancied that she hoped I had not seen her. I was watching every lookand movement, the minutest, with an attention as intense as if an ordealinvolving my life depended on them. 

Chapter II

THE INN-YARD OF THE BELLE ÉTOILE

The face was, indeed, one to fall in love with at first sight. Thosesentiments that take such sudden possession of young men were nowdominating my curiosity. My audacity faltered before her; and I feltthat my presence in this room was probably an impertinence. This pointshe quickly settled, for the same very sweet voice I had heard before, now said coldly, and this time in French, "Monsieur cannot be aware thatthis apartment is not public. "

I bowed very low, faltered some apologies, and backed to the door. 

I suppose I looked penitent, and embarrassed. I certainly felt so; forthe lady said, by way it seemed of softening matters, "I am happy, however, to have an opportunity of again thanking Monsieur for theassistance, so prompt and effectual, which he had the goodness to renderus today. "

It was more the altered tone in which it was spoken, than the speechitself, that encouraged me. It was also true that she need not haverecognized me; and if she had, she certainly was not obliged to thank meover again. 

All this was indescribably flattering, and all the more so that itfollowed so quickly on her slight reproof. The tone in which she spokehad become low and timid, and I observed that she turned her headquickly towards a second door of the room; I fancied that the gentlemanin the black wig, a jealous husband perhaps, might reappear through it. Almost at the same moment, a voice at once reedy and nasal was heardsnarling some directions to a servant, and evidently approaching. It wasthe voice that had thanked me so profusely, from the carriage windows, about an hour before. 

"Monsieur will have the goodness to retire, " said the lady, in a tonethat resembled entreaty, at the same time gently waving her hand towardthe door through which I had entered. Bowing again very low, I steppedback, and closed the door. 

I ran down the stairs, very much elated. I saw the host of the BelleÉtoile which, as I said, was the sign and designation of my inn. 

I described the apartment I had just quitted, said I liked it, and askedwhether I could have it. 

He was extremely troubled, but that apartment and two adjoining roomswere engaged. 

"By whom?"

"People of distinction. "

"But who are they? They must have names or titles. "

"Undoubtedly, Monsieur, but such a stream is rolling into Paris, that wehave ceased to inquire the names or titles of our guests--we designatethem simply by the rooms they occupy. "

"What stay do they make?"

"Even that, Monsieur, I cannot answer. It does not interest us. Ourrooms, while this continues, can never be, for a moment, disengaged. "

"I should have liked those rooms so much! Is one of them a sleepingapartment?"

"Yes, sir, and Monsieur will observe that people do not usually engagebedrooms unless they mean to stay the night. "

"Well, I can, I suppose, have some rooms, any, I don't care in what partof the house?"

"Certainly, Monsieur can have two apartments. They are the last atpresent disengaged. "

I took them instantly. 

It was plain these people meant to make a stay here; at least they wouldnot go till morning. I began to feel that I was all but engaged in anadventure. 

I took possession of my rooms, and looked out of the window, which Ifound commanded the inn-yard. Many horses were being liberated from thetraces, hot and weary, and others fresh from the stables being put to. Agreat many vehicles--some private carriages, others, like mine, of thatpublic class which is equivalent to our old English post-chaise, werestanding on the pavement, waiting their turn for relays. Fussy servantswere to-ing and fro-ing, and idle ones lounging or laughing, and thescene, on the whole, was animated and amusing. 

Among these objects, I thought I recognized the traveling carriage, andone of the servants of the "persons of distinction" about whom I was, just then, so profoundly interested. 

I therefore ran down the stairs, made my way to the back door; and so, behold me, in a moment, upon the uneven pavement, among all these sightsand sounds which in such a place attend upon a period of extraordinarycrush and traffic. By this time the sun was near its setting, and threwits golden beams on the red brick chimneys of the offices, and made thetwo barrels, that figured as pigeon-houses, on the tops of poles, lookas if they were on fire. Everything in this light becomes picturesque;and things interest us which, in the sober grey of morning, are dullenough. 

After a little search I lighted upon the very carriage of which I was inquest. A servant was locking one of the doors, for it was made with thesecurity of lock and key. I paused near, looking at the panel of thedoor. 

"A very pretty device that red stork!" I observed, pointing to theshield on the door, "and no doubt indicates a distinguished family?"

The servant looked at me for a moment, as he placed the little key inhis pocket, and said with a slightly sarcastic bow and smile, "Monsieuris at liberty to conjecture. "

Nothing daunted, I forthwith administered that laxative which, onoccasion, acts so happily upon the tongue--I mean a "tip. "

The servant looked at the Napoleon in his hand, and then in my face, with a sincere expression of surprise. "Monsieur is very generous!"

"Not worth mentioning--who are the lady and gentleman who came here inthis carriage, and whom, you may remember, I and my servant assistedtoday in an emergency, when their horses had come to the ground?"

"They are the Count, and the young lady we call the Countess--but I knownot, she may be his daughter. "

"Can you tell me where they live?"

"Upon my honor, Monsieur, I am unable--I know not. "

"Not know where your master lives! Surely you know something more abouthim than his name?"

"Nothing worth relating, Monsieur; in fact, I was hired in Brussels, onthe very day they started. Monsieur Picard, my fellow-servant, Monsieurthe Comte's gentleman, he has been years in his service, and knowseverything; but he never speaks except to communicate an order. From himI have learned nothing. We are going to Paris, however, and there Ishall speedily pick up all about them. At present I am as ignorant ofall that as Monsieur himself. "

"And where is Monsieur Picard?"

"He has gone to the cutler's to get his razors set. But I do not thinkhe will tell anything. "

This was a poor harvest for my golden sowing. The man, I think, spoketruth, and would honestly have betrayed the secrets of the family, if hehad possessed any. I took my leave politely; and mounting the stairsagain, I found myself once more in my room. 

Forthwith I summoned my servant. Though I had brought him with me fromEngland, he was a native of France--a useful fellow, sharp, bustling, and, of course, quite familiar with the ways and tricks of hiscountrymen. 

"St. Clair, shut the door; come here. I can't rest till I have made outsomething about those people of rank who have got the apartments undermine. Here are fifteen francs; make out the servants we assisted todayhave them to a _petit souper_, and come back and tell me theirentire history. I have, this moment, seen one of them who knows nothing, and has communicated it. The other, whose name I forget, is the unknownnobleman's valet, and knows everything. Him you must pump. It is, ofcourse, the venerable peer, and not the young lady who accompanies him, that interests me--you understand? Begone! fly! and return with all thedetails I sigh for, and every circumstance that can possibly interestme. "

It was a commission which admirably suited the tastes and spirits of myworthy St. Clair, to whom, you will have observed, I had accustomedmyself to talk with the peculiar familiarity which the old French comedyestablishes between master and valet. 

I am sure he laughed at me in secret; but nothing could be more politeand deferential. 

With several wise looks, nods and shrugs, he withdrew; and looking downfrom my window, I saw him with incredible quickness enter the yard, where I soon lost sight of him among the carriages. 

Chapter III

DEATH AND LOVE TOGETHER MATED

When the day drags, when a man is solitary, and in a fever of impatienceand suspense; when the minute hand of his watch travels as slowly as thehour hand used to do, and the hour hand has lost all appreciable motion;when he yawns, and beats the devil's tattoo, and flattens his handsomenose against the window, and whistles tunes he hates, and, in short, does not know what to do with himself, it is deeply to be regretted thathe cannot make a solemn dinner of three courses more than once in a day. The laws of matter, to which we are slaves, deny us that resource. 

But in the times I speak of, supper was still a substantial meal, andits hour was approaching. This was consolatory. Three-quarters of anhour, however, still interposed. How was I to dispose of that interval?

I had two or three idle books, it is true, as companions-companions; butthere are many moods in which one cannot read. My novel lay with my rugand walking-stick on the sofa, and I did not care if the heroine and thehero were both drowned together in the water barrel that I saw in theinn-yard under my window. I took a turn or two up and down my room, andsighed, looking at myself in the glass, adjusted my great white"choker, " folded and tied after Brummel, the immortal "Beau, " put on abuff waist-coat and my blue swallow-tailed coat with gilt buttons; Ideluged my pocket-handkerchief with Eau-de-Cologne (we had not then thevariety of bouquets with which the genius of perfumery has since blessedus) I arranged my hair, on which I piqued myself, and which I loved togroom in those days. That dark-brown _chevelure_, with a naturalcurl, is now represented by a few dozen perfectly white hairs, and itsplace--a smooth, bald, pink head--knows it no more. But let us forgetthese mortifications. It was then rich, thick, and dark-brown. I wasmaking a very careful toilet. I took my unexceptionable hat from itscase, and placed it lightly on my wise head, as nearly as memory andpractice enabled me to do so, at that very slight inclination which theimmortal person I have mentioned was wont to give to his. A pair oflight French gloves and a rather club-like knotted walking-stick, suchas just then came into vogue for a year or two again in England, in thephraseology of Sir Walter Scott's romances "completed my equipment. "

All this attention to effect, preparatory to a mere lounge in the yard, or on the steps of the Belle Étoile, was a simple act of devotion to thewonderful eyes which I had that evening beheld for the first time, andnever, never could forget! In plain terms, it was all done in the vague, very vague hope that those eyes might behold the unexceptionable get-upof a melancholy slave, and retain the image, not altogether withoutsecret approbation. 

As I completed my preparations the light failed me; the last levelstreak of sunlight disappeared, and a fading twilight only remained. Isighed in unison with the pensive hour, and threw open the window, intending to look out for a moment before going downstairs. I perceivedinstantly that the window underneath mine was also open, for I heard twovoices in conversation, although I could not distinguish what they weresaying. 

The male voice was peculiar; it was, as I told you, reedy and nasal. Iknew it, of course, instantly. The answering voice spoke in those sweettones which I recognized only too easily. The dialogue was only for aminute; the repulsive male voice laughed, I fancied, with a kind ofdevilish satire, and retired from the window, so that I almost ceased tohear it. 

The other voice remained nearer the window, but not so near as at first. 

It was not an altercation; there was evidently nothing the leastexciting in the colloquy. What would I not have given that it had been aquarrel--a violent one--and I the redresser of wrongs, and the defenderof insulted beauty! Alas! so far as I could pronounce upon the characterof the tones I heard, they might be as tranquil a pair as any inexistence. In a moment more the lady began to sing an odd littlechanson. I need not remind you how much farther the voice is heardsinging than speaking. I could distinguish the words. The voice was ofthat exquisitely sweet kind which is called, I believe, asemi-contralto; it had something pathetic, and something, I fancied, alittle mocking in its tones. I venture a clumsy, but adequatetranslation of the words:

 "Death and Love, together mated, Watch and wait in ambuscade; At early morn, or else belated, They meet and mark the man or maid. 

 Burning sigh, or breath that freezes, Numbs or maddens man or maid; Death or Love the victim seizes, Breathing from their ambuscade. "

"Enough, Madame!" said the old voice, with sudden severity. "We do notdesire, I believe, to amuse the grooms and hostlers in the yard with ourmusic. "

The lady's voice laughed gaily. 

"You desire to quarrel, Madame!" And the old man, I presume, shut downthe window. Down it went, at all events, with a rattle that might easilyhave broken the glass. 

Of all thin partitions, glass is the most effectual excluder of sound. Iheard no more, not even the subdued hum of the colloquy. 

What a charming voice this Countess had! How it melted, swelled, andtrembled! How it moved, and even agitated me! What a pity that a hoarseold jackdaw should have power to crow down such a Philomel! "Alas! whata life it is!" I moralized, wisely. "That beautiful Countess, with thepatience of an angel and the beauty of a Venus and the accomplishmentsof all the Muses, a slave! She knows perfectly who occupies theapartments over hers; she heard me raise my window. One may conjecturepretty well for whom that music was intended--aye, old gentleman, andfor whom you suspected it to be intended. "

In a very agreeable flutter I left my room and, descending the stairs, passed the Count's door very much at my leisure. There was just a chancethat the beautiful songstress might emerge. I dropped my stick on thelobby, near their door, and you may be sure it took me some little timeto pick it up! Fortune, nevertheless, did not favor me. I could not stayon the lobby all night picking up my stick, so I went down to the hall. 

I consulted the clock, and found that there remained but a quarter of anhour to the moment of supper. 

Everyone was roughing it now, every inn in confusion; people might do atsuch a juncture what they never did before. Was it just possible that, for once, the Count and Countess would take their chairs at thetable-d'hôte?

Chapter IV

MONSIEUR DROQVILLE

Full of this exciting hope I sauntered out upon the steps of the BelleÉtoile. It was now night, and a pleasant moonlight over everything. Ihad entered more into my romance since my arrival, and this poetic lightheightened the sentiment. What a drama if she turned out to be theCount's daughter, and in love with me! What a delightful--_tragedy_if she turned out to be the Count's wife! In this luxurious mood I wasaccosted by a tall and very elegantly made gentleman, who appeared to beabout fifty. His air was courtly and graceful, and there was in hiswhole manner and appearance something so distinguished that it wasimpossible not to suspect him of being a person of rank. 

He had been standing upon the steps, looking out, like me, upon themoonlight effects that transformed, as it were, the objects andbuildings in the little street. He accosted me, I say, with thepoliteness, at once easy and lofty, of a French nobleman of the oldschool. He asked me if I were not Mr. Beckett? I assented; and heimmediately introduced himself as the Marquis d'Harmonville (thisinformation he gave me in a low tone), and asked leave to present mewith a letter from Lord R----, who knew my father slightly, and hadonce done me, also, a trifling kindness. 

This English peer, I may mention, stood very high in the politicalworld, and was named as the most probable successor to the distinguishedpost of English Minister at Paris. I received it with a low bow, andread:

 My Dear Beckett, I beg to introduce my very dear friend, the Marquis d'Harmonville, whowill explain to you the nature of the services it may be in your powerto render him and us. 

He went on to speak of the Marquis as a man whose great wealth, whoseintimate relations with the old families, and whose legitimate influencewith the court rendered him the fittest possible person for thosefriendly offices which, at the desire of his own sovereign, and of ourgovernment, he has so obligingly undertaken. It added a great deal to myperplexity, when I read, further:

By-the-bye, Walton was here yesterday, and told me that your seat waslikely to be attacked; something, he says, is unquestionably going on atDomwell. You know there is an awkwardness in my meddling ever socautiously. But I advise, if it is not very officious, your makingHaxton look after it and report immediately. I fear it is serious. Iought to have mentioned that, for reasons that you will see, when youhave talked with him for five minutes, the Marquis--with the concurrenceof all our friends--drops his title, for a few weeks, and is at presentplain Monsieur Droqville. I am this moment going to town, and can say nomore. 

 Yours faithfully, R----

I was utterly puzzled. I could scarcely boast of Lord R----'s Iacquaintance. I knew no one named Haxton, and, except my hatter, no onecalled Walton; and this peer wrote as if we were intimate friends! Ilooked at the back of the letter, and the mystery was solved. And now, to my consternation--for I was plain Richard Beckett--I read:

 "_To George Stanhope Beckett, Esq. , M. P. _"

I looked with consternation in the face of the Marquis. 

"What apology can I offer to Monsieur the Mar---- to Monsieur Droqville?It is true my name is Beckett--it is true I am known, though veryslightly, to Lord R----; but the letter was not intended for me. My nameis Richard Beckett--this is to Mr. Stanhope Beckett, the member forShillingsworth. What can I say, or do, in this unfortunate situation? Ican only give you my honor as a gentleman, that, for me, the letter, which I now return, shall remain as unviolated a secret as before Iopened it. I am so shocked and grieved that such a mistake should haveoccurred!"

I dare say my honest vexation and good faith were pretty legibly writtenin my countenance; for the look of gloomy embarrassment which had for amoment settled on the face of the Marquis, brightened; he smiled, kindly, and extended his hand. 

"I have not the least doubt that Monsieur Beckett will respect my littlesecret. As a mistake was destined to occur, I have reason to thank mygood stars that it should have been with a gentleman of honor. MonsieurBeckett will permit me, I hope, to place his name among those of myfriends?"

I thanked the Marquis very much for his kind expressions. He went on tosay:

"If, Monsieur, I can persuade you to visit me at Claironville, inNormandy, where I hope to see, on the 15th of August, a great manyfriends, whose acquaintance it might interest you to make, I shall betoo happy. "

I thanked him, of course, very gratefully for his hospitality. Hecontinued: "I cannot, for the present, see my friends, for reasons whichyou may surmise, at my house in Paris. But Monsieur will be so good asto let me know the hotel he means to stay at in Paris; and he will findthat although the Marquis d'Harmonville is not in town, that MonsieurDroqville will not lose sight of him. "

With many acknowledgments I gave him, the information he desired. 

"And in the meantime, " he continued, "if you think of any way in whichMonsieur Droqville can be of use to you, our communication shall not beinterrupted, and I shall so manage matters that you can easily let meknow. "

I was very much flattered. The Marquis had, as we say, taken a fancy tome. Such likings at first sight often ripen into lasting friendships. Tobe sure it was just possible that the Marquis might think it prudent tokeep the involuntary depositary of a political secret, even so vague aone, in good humor. 

Very graciously the Marquis took his leave, going up the stairs of theBelle Étoile. 

I remained upon the steps for a minute, lost in speculation upon thisnew theme of interest. But the wonderful eyes, the thrilling voice, theexquisite figure of the beautiful lady who had taken possession of myimagination, quickly re-asserted their influence. I was again gazing atthe sympathetic moon, and descending the steps I loitered along thepavements among strange objects, and houses that were antique andpicturesque, in a dreamy state, thinking. 

In a little while I turned into the inn-yard again. There had come alull. Instead of the noisy place it was an hour or two before, the yardwas perfectly still and empty, except for the carriages that stood hereand there. Perhaps there was a servants' table-d'hôte just then. I wasrather pleased to find solitude; and undisturbed I found out mylady-love's carriage, in the moonlight. I mused, I walked round it; Iwas as utterly foolish and maudlin as very young men, in my situation, usually are. The blinds were down, the doors, I suppose, locked. Thebrilliant moonlight revealed everything, and cast sharp, black shadowsof wheel, and bar, and spring, on the pavement. I stood before theescutcheon painted on the door, which I had examined in the daylight. Iwondered how often her eyes had rested on the same object. I pondered ina charming dream. A harsh, loud voice, over my shoulder, said suddenly:"A red stork--good! The stork is a bird of prey; it is vigilant, greedy, and catches gudgeons. Red, too!--blood red! Hal ha! the symbol isappropriate. "

I had turned about, and beheld the palest face I ever saw. It was broad, ugly, and malignant. The figure was that of a French officer, inundress, and was six feet high. Across the nose and eyebrow there was adeep scar, which made the repulsive face grimmer. 

The officer elevated his chin and his eyebrows, with a scoffing chuckle, and said: "I have shot a stork, with a rifle bullet, when he thoughthimself safe in the clouds, for mere sport!" (He shrugged, and laughedmalignantly. ) "See, Monsieur; when a man like me--a man of energy, youunderstand, a man with all his wits about him, a man who has made thetour of Europe under canvas, and, _parbleu_! often without it--resolves to discover a secret, expose a crime, catch a thief, spit arobber on the point of his sword, it is odd if he does not succeed. Ha!ha! ha! Adieu, Monsieur!"

He turned with an angry whisk on his heel, and swaggered with longstrides out of the gate. 

Chapter V

SUPPER AT THE BELLE ÉTOILE

The French army were in a rather savage temper just then. The English, especially, had but scant courtesy to expect at their hands. It wasplain, however, that the cadaverous gentleman who had just apostrophizedthe heraldry of the Count's carriage, with such mysterious acrimony, hadnot intended any of his malevolence for me. He was stung by some oldrecollection, and had marched off, seething with fury. 

I had received one of those unacknowledged shocks which startle us, when, fancying ourselves perfectly alone, we discover on a sudden thatour antics have been watched by a spectator, almost at our elbow. Inthis case the effect was enhanced by the extreme repulsiveness of theface, and, I may add, its proximity, for, as I think, it almost touchedmine. The enigmatical harangue of this person, so full of hatred andimplied denunciation, was still in my ears. Here at all events was newmatter for the industrious fancy of a lover to work upon. 

It was time now to go to the table-d'hôte. Who could tell what lightsthe gossip of the supper-table might throw upon the subject thatinterested me so powerfully!

I stepped into the room, my eyes searching the little assembly, aboutthirty people, for the persons who specially interested me. It was noteasy to induce people, so hurried and overworked as those of the BelleÉtoile just now, to send meals up to one's private apartments, in themidst of this unparalleled confusion; and, therefore, many people whodid not like it might find themselves reduced to the alternative ofsupping at the table-d'hôte or starving. 

The Count was not there, nor his beautiful companion; but the Marquisd'Harmonville, whom I hardly expected to see in so public a place, signed, with a significant smile, to a vacant chair beside himself. Isecured it, and he seemed pleased, and almost immediately entered intoconversation with me. 

"This is, probably, your first visit to France?" he said. 

I told him it was, and he said:

"You must not think me very curious and impertinent; but Paris is aboutthe most dangerous capital a high-spirited and generous young gentlemancould visit without a Mentor. If you have not an experienced friend as acompanion during your visit--. " He paused. 

I told him I was not so provided, but that I had my wits about me; thatI had seen a good deal of life in England, and that I fancied humannature was pretty much the same in all parts of the world. The Marquisshook his head, smiling. 

"You will find very marked differences, notwithstanding, " he said. "Peculiarities of intellect and peculiarities of character, undoubtedly, do pervade different nations; and this results, among the criminalclasses, in a style of villainy no less peculiar. In Paris the class wholive by their wits is three or four times as great as in London; andthey live much better; some of them even splendidly. They are moreingenious than the London rogues; they have more animation andinvention, and the dramatic faculty, in which your countrymen aredeficient, is everywhere. These invaluable attributes place them upon atotally different level. They can affect the manners and enjoy theluxuries of people of distinction. They live, many of them, by play. "

"So do many of our London rogues. "

"Yes, but in a totally different way. They are the _habitués_ ofcertain gaming-tables, billiard-rooms, and other places, including yourraces, where high play goes on; and by superior knowledge of chances, bymasking their play, by means of confederates, by means of bribery, andother artifices, varying with the subject of their imposture, they robthe unwary. But here it is more elaborately done, and with a reallyexquisite _finesse_. There are people whose manners, style, conversation, are unexceptionable, living in handsome houses in the bestsituations, with everything about them in the most refined taste, andexquisitely luxurious, who impose even upon the Parisian bourgeois, whobelieve them to be, in good faith, people of rank and fashion, becausetheir habits are expensive and refined, and their houses are frequentedby foreigners of distinction, and, to a degree, by foolish youngFrenchmen of rank. At all these houses play goes on. The ostensible hostand hostess seldom join in it; they provide it simply to plunder theirguests, by means of their accomplices, and thus wealthy strangers areinveigled and robbed. "

"But I have heard of a young Englishman, a son of Lord Rooksbury, whobroke two Parisian gaming tables only last year. "

"I see, " he said, laughing, "you are come here to do likewise. I, myself, at about your age, undertook the same spirited enterprise. Iraised no less a sum than five hundred thousand francs to begin with; Iexpected to carry all before me by the simple expedient of going ondoubling my stakes. I had heard of it, and I fancied that the sharpers, who kept the table, knew nothing of the matter. I found, however, thatthey not only knew all about it, but had provided against thepossibility of any such experiments; and I was pulled up before I hadwell begun by a rule which forbids the doubling of an original stakemore than four times consecutively. "

"And is that rule in force still?" I inquired, chapfallen. 

He laughed and shrugged, "Of course it is, my young friend. People wholive by an art always understand it better than an amateur. I see youhad formed the same plan, and no doubt came provided. "

I confessed I had prepared for conquest upon a still grander scale. I had arrived with a purse of thirty thousand pounds sterling. 

"Any acquaintance of my very dear friend, Lord R----, interests me; and, besides my regard for him, I am charmed with you; so you will pardonall my, perhaps, too officious questions and advice. "

I thanked him most earnestly for his valuable counsel, and begged thathe would have the goodness to give me all the advice in his power. 

"Then if you take my advice, " said he, "you will leave your money in thebank where it lies. Never risk a Napoleon in a gaming house. The night Iwent to break the bank I lost between seven and eight thousand poundssterling of your English money; and my next adventure, I had obtained anintroduction to one of those elegant gaming-houses which affect to bethe private mansions of persons of distinction, and was saved from ruinby a gentleman whom, ever since, I have regarded with increasing respectand friendship. It oddly happens he is in this house at this moment. Irecognized his servant, and made him a visit in his apartments here, andfound him the same brave, kind, honorable man I always knew him. Butthat he is living so entirely out of the world, now, I should have madea point of introducing you. Fifteen years ago he would have been the manof all others to consult. The gentleman I speak of is the Comte de St. Alyre. He represents a very old family. He is the very soul of honor, and the most sensible man in the world, except in one particular. "

"And that particular?" I hesitated. I was now deeply interested. 

"Is that he has married a charming creature, at least five-and-fortyyears younger than himself, and is, of course, although I believeabsolutely without cause, horribly jealous. "

"And the lady?"

"The Countess is, I believe, in every way worthy of so good a man, " heanswered, a little dryly. "I think I heard her sing this evening. "

"Yes, I daresay; she is very accomplished. " After a few moments' silencehe continued. 

"I must not lose sight of you, for I should be sorry, when next you meetmy friend Lord R----, that you had to tell him you had been pigeoned inParis. A rich Englishman as you are, with so large a sum at his Parisbankers, young, gay, generous, a thousand ghouls and harpies will becontending who shall be the first to seize and devour you. "

At this moment I received something like a jerk from the elbow of thegentleman at my right. It was an accidental jog, as he turned in hisseat. 

"On the honor of a soldier, there is no man's flesh in this companyheals so fast as mine. "

The tone in which this was spoken was harsh and stentorian, and almostmade me bounce. I looked round and recognized the officer whose largewhite face had half scared me in the inn-yard, wiping his mouthfuriously, and then with a gulp of Magon, he went on:

"No one! It's not blood; it is ichor! it's miracle! Set aside stature, thew, bone, and muscle--set aside courage, and by all the angels ofdeath, I'd fight a lion naked, and dash his teeth down his jaws with myfist, and flog him to death with his own tail! Set aside, I say, allthose attributes, which I am allowed to possess, and I am worth six menin any campaign, for that one quality of healing as I do--rip me up, punch me through, tear me to tatters with bomb-shells, and nature has mewhole again, while your tailor would fine--draw an old coat. _Parbleu_! gentlemen, if you saw me naked, you would laugh! Look atmy hand, a saber-cut across the palm, to the bone, to save my head, taken up with three stitches, and five days afterwards I was playingball with an English general, a prisoner in Madrid, against the wall ofthe convent of the Santa Maria de la Castita! At Arcola, by the greatdevil himself! that was an action. Every man there, gentlemen, swallowedas much smoke in five minutes as would smother you all in this room! Ireceived, at the same moment, two musket balls in the thighs, a grapeshot through the calf of my leg, a lance through my left shoulder, apiece of a shrapnel in the left deltoid, a bayonet through the cartilageof my right ribs, a cut-cut that carried away a pound of flesh from mychest, and the better part of a congreve rocket on my forehead. Prettywell, ha, ha! and all while you'd say bah! and in eight days and a halfI was making a forced march, without shoes, and only one gaiter, thelife and soul of my company, and as sound as a roach!"

"Bravo! Bravissimo! Per Bacco! un gallant' uomo!" exclaimed, in amartial ecstasy, a fat little Italian, who manufactured toothpicks andwicker cradles on the island of Notre Dame; "your exploits shall resoundthrough Europe! and the history of those wars should be written in yourblood!"

"Never mind! a trifle!" exclaimed the soldier. "At Ligny, the other day, where we smashed the Prussians into ten hundred thousand milliards ofatoms, a bit of a shell cut me across the leg and opened an artery. Itwas spouting as high as the chimney, and in half a minute I had lostenough to fill a pitcher. I must have expired in another minute, if Ihad not whipped off my sash like a flash of lightning, tied it round myleg above the wound, whipt a bayonet out of the back of a dead Prussian, and passing it under, made a tourniquet of it with a couple of twists, and so stayed the haemorrhage and saved my life. But, _sacrebleu_!gentlemen, I lost so much blood, I have been as pale as the bottom of aplate ever since. No matter. A trifle. Blood well spent, gentlemen. " Heapplied himself now to his bottle of _vin ordinaire_. 

The Marquis had closed his eyes, and looked resigned and disgusted, while all this was going on. 

"_Garçon_, " said the officer, for the first time speaking in a lowtone over the back of his chair to the waiter; "who came in thattraveling carriage, dark yellow and black, that stands in the middle ofthe yard, with arms and supporters emblazoned on the door, and a redstork, as red as my facings?"

The waiter could not say. 

The eye of the eccentric officer, who had suddenly grown grim andserious, and seemed to have abandoned the general conversation to otherpeople, lighted, as it were accidentally, on me. 

"Pardon me, Monsieur, " he said. "Did I not see you examining the panelof that carriage at the same time that I did so, this evening? Can youtell me who arrived in it?"

"I rather think the Count and Countess de St. Alyre. "

"And are they here, in the Belle Étoile?" he asked. 

"They have got apartments upstairs, " I answered. 

He started up, and half pushed his chair from the table. He quickly satdown again, and I could hear him _sacré_-ing and muttering tohimself, and grinning and scowling. I could not tell whether he wasalarmed or furious. 

I turned to say a word or two to the Marquis, but he was gone. Severalother people had dropped out also, and the supper party soon broke up. Two or three substantial pieces of wood smoldered on the hearth, for thenight had turned out chilly. I sat down by the fire in a great armchairof carved oak, with a marvelously high back that looked as old as thedays of Henry IV. 

"_Garçon_, " said I, "do you happen to know who that officer is?"

"That is Colonel Gaillarde, Monsieur. "

"Has he been often here?"

"Once before, Monsieur, for a week; it is a year since. "

"He is the palest man I ever saw. "

"That is true, Monsieur; he has been often taken for a _revenant_. "

"Can you give me a bottle of really good Burgundy?"

"The best in France, Monsieur. "

"Place it, and a glass by my side, on this table, if you please. I maysit here for half-an-hour. "

"Certainly, Monsieur. "

I was very comfortable, the wine excellent, and my thoughts glowing andserene. "Beautiful Countess! Beautiful Countess! shall we ever be betteracquainted?"

Chapter VI

THE NAKED SWORD

A man who has been posting all day long, and changing the air hebreathes every half hour, who is well pleased with himself, and hasnothing on earth to trouble him, and who sits alone by a fire in acomfortable chair after having eaten a hearty supper, may be pardonedif he takes an accidental nap. 

I had filled my fourth glass when I fell asleep. My head, I daresay, hung uncomfortably; and it is admitted that a variety of French dishesis not the most favorable precursor to pleasant dreams. 

I had a dream as I took mine ease in mine inn on this occasion. Ifancied myself in a huge cathedral, without light, except from fourtapers that stood at the corners of a raised platform hung with black, on which lay, draped also in black, what seemed to me the dead body ofthe Countess de St. Alyre. The place seemed empty, it was cold, and Icould see only (in the halo of the candles) a little way round. 

The little I saw bore the character of Gothic gloom, and helped my fancyto shape and furnish the black void that yawned all round me. I heard asound like the slow tread of two persons walking up the flagged aisle. Afaint echo told of the vastness of the place. An awful sense ofexpectation was upon me, and I was horribly frightened when the bodythat lay on the catafalque said (without stirring), in a whisper thatfroze me, "They come to place me in the grave alive; save me. "

I found that I could neither speak nor move. I was horribly frightened. 

The two people who approached now emerged from the darkness. One, theCount de St. Alyre, glided to the head of the figure and placed his longthin hands under it. The white-faced Colonel, with the scar across hisface, and a look of infernal triumph, placed his hands under her feet, and they began to raise her. 

With an indescribable effort I broke the spell that bound me, andstarted to my feet with a gasp. 

I was wide awake, but the broad, wicked face of Colonel Gaillarde wasstaring, white as death, at me from the other side of the hearth. "Whereis she?" I shuddered. 

"That depends on who she is, Monsieur, " replied the Colonel, curtly. 

"Good heavens!" I gasped, looking about me. 

The Colonel, who was eyeing me sarcastically, had had his _demitasse_of _café noir_, and now drank his _tasse_, diffusing a pleasantperfume of brandy. 

"I fell asleep and was dreaming, " I said, lest any strong language, founded on the _rôle_ he played in my dream, should have escapedme. "I did not know for some moments where I was. "

"You are the young gentleman who has the apartments over the Count andCountess de St. Alyre?" he said, winking one eye, close in meditation, and glaring at me with the other. 

"I believe so--yes, " I answered. 

"Well, younker, take care you have not worse dreams than that somenight, " he said, enigmatically, and wagged his head with a chuckle. "Worse dreams, " he repeated. 

"What does Monsieur the Colonel mean?" I inquired. 

"I am trying to find that out myself, " said the Colonel; "and I think Ishall. When _I_ get the first inch of the thread fast between myfinger and thumb, it goes hard but I follow it up, bit by bit, little bylittle, tracing it this way and that, and up and down, and round about, until the whole clue is wound up on my thumb, and the end, and itssecret, fast in my fingers. Ingenious! Crafty as five foxes! wide awakeas a weasel! _Parbleu_! if I had descended to that occupation Ishould have made my fortune as a spy. Good wine here?" he glancedinterrogatively at my bottle. 

"Very good, " said I. "Will Monsieur the Colonel try a glass?"

He took the largest he could find, and filled it, raised it with a bow, and drank it slowly. "Ah! ah! Bah! That is not it, " he exclaimed, withsome disgust, filling it again. "You ought to have told _me_ toorder your Burgundy, and they would not have brought you that stuff. "

I got away from this man as soon as I civilly could, and, putting on myhat, I walked out with no other company than my sturdy walking-stick. Ivisited the inn-yard, and looked up to the windows of the Countess'sapartments. They were closed, however, and I had not even theunsubstantial consolation of contemplating the light in which thatbeautiful lady was at that moment writing, or reading, or sitting andthinking of--anyone you please. 

I bore this serious privation as well as I could, and took a littlesaunter through the town. I shan't bore you with moonlight effects, norwith the maunderings of a man who has fallen in love at first sight witha beautiful face. My ramble, it is enough to say, occupied about half anhour, and, returning by a slight détour, I found myself in a littlesquare, with about two high gabled houses on each side, and a rude stonestatue, worn by centuries of rain, on a pedestal in the center of thepavement. Looking at this statue was a slight and rather tall man, whomI instantly recognized as the Marquis d'Harmonville: he knew me almostas quickly. He walked a step towards me, shrugged and laughed:

"You are surprised to find Monsieur Droqville staring at that old stonefigure by moonlight. Anything to pass the time. You, I see, suffer from_ennui_, as I do. These little provincial towns! Heavens! what aneffort it is to live in them! If I could regret having formed in earlylife a friendship that does me honor, I think its condemning me to asojourn in such a place would make me do so. You go on towards Paris, Isuppose, in the morning?"

"I have ordered horses. "

"As for me I await a letter, or an arrival, either would emancipate me;but I can't say how soon either event will happen. "

"Can I be of any use in this matter?" I began. 

"None, Monsieur, I thank you a thousand times. No, this is a piece inwhich every _rôle_ is already cast. I am but an amateur, andinduced solely by friendship, to take a part. "

So he talked on, for a time, as we walked slowly toward the BelleÉtoile, and then came a silence, which I broke by asking him if he knewanything of Colonel Gaillarde. 

"Oh! yes, to be sure. He is a little mad; he has had some bad injuriesof the head. He used to plague the people in the War Office to death. Hehas always some delusion. They contrived some employment for him--notregimental, of course--but in this campaign Napoleon, who could sparenobody, placed him in command of a regiment. He was always a desperatefighter, and such men were more than ever needed. "

There is, or was, a second inn in this town called l'Écu de France. Atits door the Marquis stopped, bade me a mysterious good-night, anddisappeared. 

As I walked slowly toward my inn, I met, in the shadow of a row ofpoplars, the garçon who had brought me my Burgundy a little time ago. Iwas thinking of Colonel Gaillarde, and I stopped the little waiter as hepassed me. 

"You said, I think, that Colonel Gaillarde was at the Belle Étoile for aweek at one time. "

"Yes, Monsieur. "

"Is he perfectly in his right mind?"

The waiter stared. "Perfectly, Monsieur. "

"Has he been suspected at any time of being out of his mind?"

"Never, Monsieur; he is a little noisy, but a very shrewd man. "

"What is a fellow to think?" I muttered, as I walked on. 

I was soon within sight of the lights of the Belle Étoile. A carriage, with four horses, stood in the moonlight at the door, and a furiousaltercation was going on in the hall, in which the yell of ColonelGaillarde out-topped all other sounds. 

Most young men like, at least, to witness a row. But, intuitively, Ifelt that this would interest me in a very special manner. I had onlyfifty yards to run, when I found myself in the hall of the old inn. Theprincipal actor in this strange drama was, indeed, the Colonel, whostood facing the old Count de St. Alyre, who, in his traveling costume, with his black silk scarf covering the lower part of his face, confronted him; he had evidently been intercepted in an endeavor toreach his carriage. A little in the rear of the Count stood theCountess, also in traveling costume, with her thick black veil down, andholding in her delicate fingers a white rose. You can't conceive a morediabolical effigy of hate and fury than the Colonel; the knotted veinsstood out on his forehead, his eyes were leaping from their sockets, hewas grinding his teeth, and froth was on his lips. His sword was drawnin his hand, and he accompanied his yelling denunciations with stampsupon the floor and flourishes of his weapon in the air. 

The host of the Belle Étoile was talking to the Colonel in soothingterms utterly thrown away. Two waiters, pale with fear, stared uselesslyfrom behind. The Colonel screamed and thundered, and whirled his sword. "I was not sure of your red birds of prey; I could not believe you wouldhave the audacity to travel on high roads, and to stop at honest inns, and lie under the same roof with honest men. You! _you! both_--vampires, wolves, ghouls. Summon the _gendarmes_, I say. By St. Peter and allthe devils, if either of you try to get out of that door I'll take yourheads off. "

For a moment I had stood aghast. Here was a situation! I walked up tothe lady; she laid her hand wildly upon my arm. "Oh! Monsieur, " shewhispered, in great agitation, "that dreadful madman! What are we to do?He won't let us pass; he will kill my husband. "

"Fear nothing, Madame, " I answered, with romantic devotion, and steppingbetween the Count and Gaillarde, as he shrieked his invective, "Holdyour tongue, and clear the way, you ruffian, you bully, you coward!" Iroared. 

A faint cry escaped the lady, which more than repaid the risk I ran, asthe sword of the frantic soldier, after a moment's astonished pause, flashed in the air to cut me down. 

Chapter VII

THE WHITE ROSE

I was too quick for Colonel Gaillarde. As he raised his sword, recklessof all consequences but my condign punishment and quite resolved tocleave me to the teeth, I struck him across the side of his head with myheavy stick, and while he staggered back I struck him another blow, nearly in the same place, that felled him to the floor, where he lay asif dead. 

I did not care one of his own regimental buttons, whether he was dead ornot; I was, at that moment, carried away by such a tumult of delightfuland diabolical emotions!

I broke his sword under my foot, and flung the pieces across the street. The old Count de St. Alyre skipped nimbly without looking to the rightor left, or thanking anybody, over the floor, out of the door, down thesteps, and into his carriage. Instantly I was at the side of thebeautiful Countess, thus left to shift for herself; I offered her myarm, which she took, and I led her to the carriage. She entered, and Ishut the door. All this without a word. 

I was about to ask if there were any commands with which she would honorme--my hand was laid upon the lower edge of the window, which was open. 

The lady's hand was laid upon mine timidly and excitedly. Her lipsalmost touched my cheek as she whispered hurriedly:

"I may never see you more, and, oh! that I could forget you. Go--farewell--for God's sake, go!"

I pressed her hand for a moment. She withdrew it, but tremblinglypressed into mine the rose which she had held in her fingers during theagitating scene she had just passed through. 

All this took place while the Count was commanding, entreating, cursinghis servants, tipsy, and out of the way during the crisis, my conscienceafterwards insinuated, by my clever contrivance. They now mounted totheir places with the agility of alarm. The postilions' whips cracked, the horses scrambled into a trot, and away rolled the carriage, with itsprecious freightage, along the quaint main street, in the moonlight, toward Paris. 

I stood on the pavement till it was quite lost to eye and ear in thedistance. 

With a deep sigh, I then turned, my white rose folded in myhandkerchief--the little parting _gage_--the

 Favor secret, sweet, and precious, which no mortal eye but hers and mine had seen conveyed to me. 

The care of the host of the Belle Étoile, and his assistants, had raisedthe wounded hero of a hundred fights partly against the wall, andpropped him at each side with portmanteaus and pillows, and poured aglass of brandy, which was duly placed to his account, into his bigmouth, where, for the first time, such a godsend remained unswallowed. 

A bald-headed little military surgeon of sixty, with spectacles, who hadcut off eighty-seven legs and arms to his own share, after the battle ofEylau, having retired with his sword and his saw, his laurels and hissticking-plaster to this, his native town, was called in, and ratherthought the gallant Colonel's skull was fractured; at all events, therewas concussion of the seat of thought, and quite enough work for hisremarkable self-healing powers to occupy him for a fortnight. 

I began to grow a little uneasy. A disagreeable surprise, if myexcursion, in which I was to break banks and hearts, and, as you see, heads, should end upon the gallows or the guillotine. I was not clear, in those times of political oscillation, which was the establishedapparatus. 

The Colonel was conveyed, snorting apoplectically, to his room. 

I saw my host in the apartment in which we had supped. Wherever youemploy a force of any sort, to carry a point of real importance, rejectall nice calculations of economy. Better to be a thousand per cent, overthe mark, than the smallest fraction of a unit under it. I instinctivelyfelt this. 

I ordered a bottle of my landlord's very best wine; made him partakewith me, in the proportion of two glasses to one; and then told him thathe must not decline a trifling _souvenir_ from a guest who had beenso charmed with all he had seen of the renowned Belle Étoile. Thussaying, I placed five-and-thirty Napoleons in his hand: at touch ofwhich his countenance, by no means encouraging before, grew sunny, hismanners thawed, and it was plain, as he dropped the coins hastily intohis pocket, that benevolent relations had been established between us. 

I immediately placed the Colonel's broken head upon the _tapis_. Weboth agreed that if I had not given him that rather smart tap of mywalking-cane, he would have beheaded half the inmates of the BelleÉtoile. There was not a waiter in the house who would not verify thatstatement on oath. 

The reader may suppose that I had other motives, beside the desire toescape the tedious inquisition of the law, for desiring to recommence myjourney to Paris with the least possible delay. Judge what was my horrorthen to learn that, for love or money, horses were nowhere to be hadthat night. The last pair in the town had been obtained from the Écu deFrance by a gentleman who dined and supped at the Belle Étoile, and wasobliged to proceed to Paris that night. 

Who was the gentleman? Had he actually gone? Could he possibly beinduced to wait till morning?

The gentleman was now upstairs getting his things together, and his namewas Monsieur Droqville. 

I ran upstairs. I found my servant St. Clair in my room. At sight ofhim, for a moment, my thoughts were turned into a different channel. 

"Well, St. Clair, tell me this moment who the lady is?" I demanded. 

"The lady is the daughter or wife, it matters not which, of the Countde St. Alyre--the old gentleman who was so near being sliced like acucumber tonight, I am informed, by the sword of the general whomMonsieur, by a turn of fortune, has put to bed of an apoplexy. "

"Hold your tongue, fool! The man's beastly drunk--he's sulking--hecould talk if he liked--who cares? Pack up my things. Which are MonsieurDroqville's apartments?"

He knew, of course; he always knew everything. 

Half an hour later Monsieur Droqville and I were traveling towards Parisin my carriage and with his horses. I ventured to ask the Marquisd'Harmonville, in a little while, whether the lady, who accompanied theCount, was certainly the Countess. "Has he not a daughter?"

"Yes; I believe a very beautiful and charming young lady--I cannotsay--it may have been she, his daughter by an earlier marriage. I sawonly the Count himself today. "

The Marquis was growing a little sleepy, and, in a little while, heactually fell asleep in his corner. I dozed and nodded; but the Marquisslept like a top. He awoke only for a minute or two at the nextposting-house where he had fortunately secured horses by sending on hisman, he told me. "You will excuse my being so dull a companion, " hesaid, "but till tonight I have had but two hours' sleep, for more thansixty hours. I shall have a cup of coffee here; I have had my nap. Permit me to recommend you to do likewise. Their coffee is reallyexcellent. " He ordered two cups of _café noir_, and waited, withhis head from the window. "We will keep the cups, " he said, as hereceived them from the waiter, "and the tray. Thank you. "

There was a little delay as he paid for these things; and then he tookin the little tray, and handed me a cup of coffee. 

I declined the tray; so he placed it on his own knees, to act as aminiature table. 

"I can't endure being waited for and hurried, " he said, "I like to sipmy coffee at leisure. "

I agreed. It really _was_ the very perfection of coffee. 

"I, like Monsieur le Marquis, have slept very little for the last two orthree nights; and find it difficult to keep awake. This coffee will dowonders for me; it refreshes one so. "

Before we had half done, the carriage was again in motion. 

For a time our coffee made us chatty, and our conversation was animated. 

The Marquis was extremely good-natured, as well as clever, and gave me abrilliant and amusing account of Parisian life, schemes, and dangers, all put so as to furnish me with practical warnings of the most valuablekind. 

In spite of the amusing and curious stories which the Marquis relatedwith so much point and color, I felt myself again becoming graduallydrowsy and dreamy. 

Perceiving this, no doubt, the Marquis good-naturedly suffered ourconversation to subside into silence. The window next him was open. Hethrew his cup out of it; and did the same kind office for mine, andfinally the little tray flew after, and I heard it clank on the road; avaluable waif, no doubt, for some early wayfarer in wooden shoes. 

I leaned back in my corner; I had my beloved souvenir--my whiterose--close to my heart, folded, now, in white paper. It inspired allmanner of romantic dreams. I began to grow more and more sleepy. Butactual slumber did not come. I was still viewing, with my half-closedeyes, from my corner, diagonally, the interior of the carriage. 

I wished for sleep; but the barrier between waking and sleeping seemedabsolutely insurmountable; and, instead, I entered into a state of noveland indescribable indolence. 

The Marquis lifted his dispatch-box from the floor, placed it on hisknees, unlocked it, and took out what proved to be a lamp, which he hungwith two hooks, attached to it, to the window opposite to him. Helighted it with a match, put on his spectacles, and taking out a bundleof letters began to read them carefully. 

We were making way very slowly. My impatience had hitherto employed fourhorses from stage to stage. We were in this emergency, only too happy tohave secured two. But the difference in pace was depressing. 

I grew tired of the monotony of seeing the spectacled Marquis reading, folding, and docketing, letter after letter. I wished to shut out theimage which wearied me, but something prevented my being able to shut myeyes. I tried again and again; but, positively, I had lost the power ofclosing them. 

I would have rubbed my eyes, but I could not stir my hand, my will nolonger acted on my body--I found that I could not move one joint, ormuscle, no more than I could, by an effort of my will, have turned thecarriage about. 

Up to this I had experienced no sense of horror. Whatever it was, simplenight-mare was not the cause. I was awfully frightened! Was I in a fit?

It was horrible to see my good-natured companion pursue his occupationso serenely, when he might have dissipated my horrors by a single shake. 

I made a stupendous exertion to call out, but in vain; I repeated theeffort again and again, with no result. 

My companion now tied up his letters, and looked out of the window, humming an air from an opera. He drew back his head, and said, turningto me:

"Yes, I see the lights; we shall be there in two or three minutes. "

He looked more closely at me, and with a kind smile, and a little shrug, he said, "Poor child! how fatigued he must have been--how profoundly hesleeps! when the carriage stops he will waken. "

He then replaced his letters in the box-box, locked it, put hisspectacles in his pocket, and again looked out of the window. 

We had entered a little town. I suppose it was past two o'clock by thistime. The carriage drew up, I saw an inn-door open, and a light issuingfrom it. 

"Here we are!" said my companion, turning gaily to me. But I did notawake. 

"Yes, how tired he must have been!" he exclaimed, after he had waitedfor an answer. My servant was at the carriage door, and opened it. 

"Your master sleeps soundly, he is so fatigued! It would be cruel todisturb him. You and I will go in, while they change the horses, andtake some refreshment, and choose something that Monsieur Beckett willlike to take in the carriage, for when he awakes by-and-by, he will, Iam sure, be hungry. "

He trimmed his lamp, poured in some oil; and taking care not to disturbme, with another kind smile and another word of caution to my servant hegot out, and I heard him talking to St. Clair, as they entered theinn-door, and I was left in my corner, in the carriage, in the samestate. 

Chapter VIII

A THREE MINUTES' VISIT

I have suffered extreme and protracted bodily pain, at different periodsof my life, but anything like that misery, thank God, I never enduredbefore or since. I earnestly hope it may not resemble any type of deathto which we are liable. I was, indeed, a spirit in prison; andunspeakable was my dumb and unmoving agony. 

The power of thought remained clear and active. Dull terror filled mymind. How would this end? Was it actual death?

You will understand that my faculty of observing was unimpaired. I couldhear and see anything as distinctly as ever I did in my life. It wassimply that my will had, as it were, lost its hold of my body. 

I told you that the Marquis d'Harmonville had not extinguished hiscarriage lamp on going into this village inn. I was listening intently, longing for his return, which might result, by some lucky accident, inawaking me from my catalepsy. 

Without any sound of steps approaching, to announce an arrival, thecarriage-door suddenly opened, and a total stranger got in silently andshut the door. 

The lamp gave about as strong a light as a wax-candle, so I could seethe intruder perfectly. He was a young man, with a dark grey loosesurtout, made with a sort of hood, which was pulled over his head. Ithought, as he moved, that I saw the gold band of a military undress capunder it; and I certainly saw the lace and buttons of a uniform, on thecuffs of the coat that were visible under the wide sleeves of hisoutside wrapper. 

This young man had thick moustaches and an imperial, and I observed thathe had a red scar running upward from his lip across his cheek. 

He entered, shut the door softly, and sat down beside me. It was alldone in a moment; leaning toward me, and shading his eyes with hisgloved hand, he examined my face closely for a few seconds. 

This man had come as noiselessly as a ghost; and everything he did wasaccomplished with the rapidity and decision that indicated awell-defined and pre-arranged plan. His designs were evidently sinister. I thought he was going to rob and, perhaps, murder me. I lay, nevertheless, like a corpse under his hands. He inserted his hand in mybreast pocket, from which he took my precious white rose and all theletters it contained, among which was a paper of some consequence to me. 

My letters he glanced at. They were plainly not what he wanted. Myprecious rose, too, he laid aside with them. It was evidently about thepaper I have mentioned that he was concerned; for the moment he openedit he began with a pencil, in a small pocket-book, to make rapid notesof its contents. 

This man seemed to glide through his work with a noiseless and coolcelerity which argued, I thought, the training of the police department. 

He re-arranged the papers, possibly in the very order in which he hadfound them, replaced them in my breast-pocket, and was gone. His visit, I think, did not quite last three minutes. Very soon after hisdisappearance I heard the voice of the Marquis once more. He got in, andI saw him look at me and smile, half-envying me, I fancied, my soundrepose. If he had but known all!

He resumed his reading and docketing by the light of the little lampwhich had just subserved the purposes of a spy. 

We were now out of the town, pursuing our journey at the same moderatepace. We had left the scene of my police visit, as I should have termedit, now two leagues behind us, when I suddenly felt a strange throbbingin one ear, and a sensation as if air passed through it into my throat. It seemed as if a bubble of air, formed deep in my ear, swelled, andburst there. The indescribable tension of my brain seemed all at once togive way; there was an odd humming in my head, and a sort of vibrationthrough every nerve of my body, such as I have experienced in a limbthat has been, in popular phraseology, asleep. I uttered a cry and halfrose from my seat, and then fell back trembling, and with a sense ofmortal faintness. 

The Marquis stared at me, took my hand, and earnestly asked if I wasill. I could answer only with a deep groan. 

Gradually the process of restoration was completed; and I was able, though very faintly, to tell him how very ill I had been; and then todescribe the violation of my letters, during the time of his absencefrom the carriage. 

"Good heaven!" he exclaimed, "the miscreant did not get at my box-box?"

I satisfied him, so far as I had observed, on that point. He placed thebox on the seat beside him, and opened and examined its contents veryminutely. 

"Yes, undisturbed; all safe, thank heaven!" he murmured. "There arehalf-a-dozen letters here that I would not have some people read for agreat deal. "

He now asked with a very kind anxiety all about the illness I complainedof. When he had heard me, he said:

"A friend of mine once had an attack as like yours as possible. It wason board ship, and followed a state of high excitement. He was a braveman like you; and was called on to exert both his strength and hiscourage suddenly. An hour or two after, fatigue overpowered him, and heappeared to fall into a sound sleep. He really sank into a state whichhe afterwards described so that I think it must have been precisely thesame affection as yours. "

"I am happy to think that my attack was not unique. Did he everexperience a return of it?"

"I knew him for years after, and never heard of any such thing. Whatstrikes me is a parallel in the predisposing causes of each attack. Yourunexpected and gallant hand-to-hand encounter, at such desperate odds, with an experienced swordsman, like that insane colonel of dragoons, your fatigue, and, finally, your composing yourself, as my other frienddid, to sleep. "

"I wish, " he resumed, "one could make out who the _coquin_ was whoexamined your letters. It is not worth turning back, however, because weshould learn nothing. Those people always manage so adroitly. I amsatisfied, however, that he must have been an agent of the police. Arogue of any other kind would have robbed you. "

I talked very little, being ill and exhausted, but the Marquis talked onagreeably. 

"We grow so intimate, " said he, at last, "that I must remind you that Iam not, for the present, the Marquis d'Harmonville, but only MonsieurDroqville; nevertheless, when we get to Paris, although I cannot see youoften I may be of use. I shall ask you to name to me the hotel at whichyou mean to put up; because the Marquis being, as you are aware, on histravels, the Hotel d'Harmonville is, for the present, tenanted only bytwo or three old servants, who must not even see Monsieur Droqville. That gentleman will, nevertheless, contrive to get you access to the boxof Monsieur le Marquis, at the Opera, as well, possibly, as to otherplaces more difficult; and so soon as the diplomatic office of theMarquis d'Harmonville is ended, and he at liberty to declare himself, hewill not excuse his friend, Monsieur Beckett, from fulfilling hispromise to visit him this autumn at the Château d'Harmonville. "

You may be sure I thanked the Marquis. 

The nearer we got to Paris, the more I valued his protection. Thecountenance of a great man on the spot, just then, taking so kind aninterest in the stranger whom he had, as it were, blundered upon, mightmake my visit ever so many degrees more delightful than I hadanticipated. 

Nothing could be more gracious than the manner and looks of the Marquis;and, as I still thanked him, the carriage suddenly stopped in front ofthe place where a relay of horses awaited us, and where, as it turnedout, we were to part. 

Chapter IX

GOSSIP AND COUNSEL

My eventful journey was over at last. I sat in my hotel window lookingout upon brilliant Paris, which had, in a moment, recovered all itsgaiety, and more than its accustomed bustle. Everyone had read of thekind of excitement that followed the catastrophe of Napoleon, and thesecond restoration of the Bourbons. I need not, therefore, even if, atthis distance, I could, recall and describe my experiences andimpressions of the peculiar aspect of Paris, in those strange times. Itwas, to be sure, my first visit. But often as I have seen it since, Idon't think I ever saw that delightful capital in a state, pleasurablyso excited and exciting. 

I had been two days in Paris, and had seen all sorts of sights, andexperienced none of that rudeness and insolence of which otherscomplained from the exasperated officers of the defeated French army. 

I must say this, also. My romance had taken complete possession of me;and the chance of seeing the object of my dream gave a secret anddelightful interest to my rambles and drives in the streets andenvirons, and my visits to the galleries and other sights of themetropolis. 

I had neither seen nor heard of Count or Countess, nor had the Marquisd'Harmonville made any sign. I had quite recovered the strangeindisposition under which I had suffered during my night journey. 

It was now evening, and I was beginning to fear that my patricianacquaintance had quite forgotten me, when the waiter presented me thecard of "Monsieur Droqville"; and, with no small elation and hurry, Idesired him to show the gentleman up. 

In came the Marquis d'Harmonville, kind and gracious as ever. 

"I am a night-bird at present, " said he, so soon as we had exchanged thelittle speeches which are usual. "I keep in the shade during thedaytime, and even now I hardly ventured to come in a close carriage. Thefriends for whom I have undertaken a rather critical service, have soordained it. They think all is lost if I am known to be in Paris. First, let me present you with these orders for my box. I am so vexed that Icannot command it oftener during the next fortnight; during my absence Ihad directed my secretary to give it for any night to the first of myfriends who might apply, and the result is, that I find next to nothingleft at my disposal. "

I thanked him very much. 

"And now a word in my office of Mentor. You have not come here, ofcourse, without introductions?"

I produced half-a-dozen letters, the addresses of which he looked at. 

"Don't mind these letters, " he said. "I will introduce you. I will takeyou myself from house to house. One friend at your side is worth manyletters. Make no intimacies, no acquaintances, until then. You young menlike best to exhaust the public amusements of a great city, beforeembarrassing yourselves with the engagements of society. Go to allthese. It will occupy you, day and night, for at least three weeks. Whenthis is over, I shall be at liberty, and will myself introduce you tothe brilliant but comparatively quiet routine of society. Place yourselfin my hands; and in Paris remember, when once in society, you are alwaysthere. "

I thanked him very much, and promised to follow his counsels implicitly. He seemed pleased, and said: "I shall now tell you some of the placesyou ought to go to. Take your map, and write letters or numbers upon thepoints I will indicate, and we will make out a little list. All theplaces that I shall mention to you are worth seeing. "

In this methodical way, and with a great deal of amusing and scandalousanecdote, he furnished me with a catalogue and a guide, which, to aseeker of novelty and pleasure, was invaluable. 

"In a fortnight, perhaps in a week, " he said, "I shall be at leisure tobe of real use to you. In the meantime, be on your guard. You must notplay; you will be robbed if you do. Remember, you are surrounded, here, by plausible swindlers and villains of all kinds, who subsist bydevouring strangers. Trust no one but those you know. "

I thanked him again, and promised to profit by his advice. But my heartwas too full of the beautiful lady of the Belle Étoile, to allow ourinterview to close without an effort to learn something about her. Itherefore asked for the Count and Countess de St. Alyre, whom I had hadthe good fortune to extricate from an extremely unpleasant row in thehall of the inn. 

Alas! he had not seen them since. He did not know where they werestaying. They had a fine old house only a few leagues from Paris; but hethought it probable that they would remain, for a few days at least, inthe city, as preparations would, no doubt, be necessary, after so longan absence, for their reception at home. 

"How long have they been away?"

"About eight months, I think. "

"They are poor, I think you said?"

"What _you_ would consider poor. But, Monsieur, the Count has anincome which affords them the comforts and even the elegancies of life, living as they do, in a very quiet and retired way, in this cheapcountry. "

"Then they are very happy?"

"One would say they _ought_ to be happy. "

"And what prevents?"

"He is jealous. "

"But his wife--she gives him no cause. "

"I am afraid she does. "

"How, Monsieur?"

"I always thought she was a little too--_a great deal_ too--"

"Too _what_, Monsieur?"

"Too handsome. But although she has remarkable fine eyes, exquisitefeatures, and the most delicate complexion in the world, I believe thatshe is a woman of probity. You have never seen her?"

"There was a lady, muffled up in a cloak, with a very thick veil on, theother night, in the hall of the Belle Étoile, when I broke that fellow'shead who was bullying the old Count. But her veil was so thick I couldnot see a feature through it!" My answer was diplomatic, you observe. "She may have been the Count's daughter. Do they quarrel?"

"Who, he and his wife?"

"Yes. "

"A little. "

Oh! and what do they quarrel about?"

"It is a long story; about the lady's diamonds. They are valuable--theyare worth, La Perelleuse says, about a million of francs. The Countwishes them sold and turned into revenue, which he offers to settle asshe pleases. The Countess, whose they are, resists, and for a reasonwhich, I rather think, she can't disclose to him. "

"And pray what is that?" I asked, my curiosity a good deal piqued. 

"She is thinking, I conjecture, how well she will look in them when shemarries her second husband. "

"Oh?--yes, to be sure. But the Count de St. Alyre is a good man?"

"Admirable, and extremely intelligent. "

"I should wish so much to be presented to the Count: you tell me he'sso--"

"So agreeably married. But they are living quite out of the world. Hetakes her now and then to the Opera, or to a public entertainment; butthat is all. "

"And he must remember so much of the old _régime_, and so many ofthe scenes of the revolution!"

"Yes, the very man for a philosopher, like you! And he falls asleepafter dinner; and his wife don't. But, seriously, he has retired fromthe gay and the great world, and has grown apathetic; and so has hiswife; and nothing seems to interest her now, not even--her husband!"

The Marquis stood up to take his leave. 

"Don't risk your money, " said he. "You will soon have an opportunity oflaying out some of it to great advantage. Several collections of reallygood pictures, belonging to persons who have mixed themselves up in thisBonapartist restoration, must come within a few weeks to the hammer. Youcan do wonders when these sales commence. There will be startlingbargains! Reserve yourself for them. I shall let you know all about it. By-the-by, " he said, stopping short as he approached the door, "I was sonear forgetting. There is to be next week, the very thing you wouldenjoy so much, because you see so little of it in England--I mean a_bal masqué_, conducted, it is said, with more than usual splendor. It takes place at Versailles--all the world will be there; there is sucha rush for cards! But I think I may promise you one. Good-night! Adieu!"

Chapter X

THE BLACK VEIL

Speaking the language fluently, and with unlimited money, there wasnothing to prevent my enjoying all that was enjoyable in the Frenchcapital. You may easily suppose how two days were passed. At the end ofthat time, and at about the same hour, Monsieur Droqville called again. 

Courtly, good-natured, gay, as usual, he told me that the masqueradeball was fixed for the next Wednesday, and that he had applied for acard for me. 

How awfully unlucky. I was so afraid I should not be able to go. 

He stared at me for a moment with a suspicious and menacing look, whichI did not understand, in silence, and then inquired rather sharply. Andwill Monsieur Beckett be good enough to say why not?

I was a little surprised, but answered the simple truth: I had made anengagement for that evening with two or three English friends, and didnot see how I could. 

"Just so! You English, wherever you are, always look out for yourEnglish boors, your beer and _'bifstek'_; and when you come here, instead of trying to learn something of the people you visit, andpretend to study, you are guzzling and swearing, and smoking with oneanother, and no wiser or more polished at the end of your travels thanif you had been all the time carousing in a booth at Greenwich. "

He laughed sarcastically, and looked as if he could have poisoned me. 

"There it is, " said he, throwing the card on the table. "Take it orleave it, just as you please. I suppose I shall have my trouble for mypains; but it is not usual when a man such as I takes trouble, asks afavor, and secures a privilege for an acquaintance, to treat him so. "

This was astonishingly impertinent. 

I was shocked, offended, penitent. I had possibly committed unwittinglya breach of good breeding, according to French ideas, which almostjustified the brusque severity of the Marquis's undignified rebuke. 

In a confusion, therefore, of many feelings, I hastened to make myapologies, and to propitiate the chance friend who had showed me so muchdisinterested kindness. 

I told him that I would, at any cost, break through the engagement inwhich I had unluckily entangled myself; that I had spoken with toolittle reflection, and that I certainly had not thanked him at all inproportion to his kindness, and to my real estimate of it. 

"Pray say not a word more; my vexation was entirely on your account; andI expressed it, I am only too conscious, in terms a great deal toostrong, which, I am sure, your good nature will pardon. Those who knowme a little better are aware that I sometimes say a good deal more thanI intend; and am always sorry when I do. Monsieur Beckett will forgetthat his old friend Monsieur Droqville has lost his temper in his cause, for a moment, and--we are as good friends as before. "

He smiled like the Monsieur Droqville of the Belle Étoile, and extendedhis hand, which I took very respectfully and cordially. 

Our momentary quarrel had left us only better friends. 

The Marquis then told me I had better secure a bed in some hotel atVersailles, as a rush would be made to take them; and advised my goingdown next morning for the purpose. 

I ordered horses accordingly for eleven o'clock; and, after a littlemore conversation, the Marquis d'Harmonville bade me good-night, and randown the stairs with his handkerchief to his mouth and nose, and, as Isaw from my window, jumped into his close carriage again and drove away. 

Next day I was at Versailles. As I approached the door of the Hotel deFrance it was plain that I was not a moment too soon, if, indeed, I werenot already too late. 

A crowd of carriages were drawn up about the entrance, so that I had nochance of approaching except by dismounting and pushing my way among thehorses. The hall was full of servants and gentlemen screaming to theproprietor, who in a state of polite distraction was assuring them, oneand all, that there was not a room or a closet disengaged in his entirehouse. 

I slipped out again, leaving the hall to those who were shouting, expostulating, and wheedling, in the delusion that the host might, if hepleased, manage something for them. I jumped into my carriage and drove, at my horses' best pace, to the Hotel du Reservoir. The blockade aboutthis door was as complete as the other. The result was the same. It wasvery provoking, but what was to be done? My postilion had, a littleofficiously, while I was in the hall talking with the hotel authorities, got his horses, bit by bit, as other carriages moved away, to the verysteps of the inn door. 

This arrangement was very convenient so far as getting in again wasconcerned. But, this accomplished, how were we to get on? There werecarriages in front, and carriages behind, and no less than four rows ofcarriages, of all sorts, outside. 

I had at this time remarkably long and clear sight, and if I had beenimpatient before, guess what my feelings were when I saw an opencarriage pass along the narrow strip of roadway left open at the otherside, a barouche in which I was certain I recognized the veiled Countessand her husband. This carriage had been brought to a walk by a cartwhich occupied the whole breadth of the narrow way, and was moving withthe customary tardiness of such vehicles. 

I should have done more wisely if I had jumped down on the_trottoir_, and run round the block of carriages in front of thebarouche. But, unfortunately, I was more of a Murat than a Moltke, andpreferred a direct charge upon my object to relying on _tactique_. I dashed across the back seat of a carriage which was next mine, I don'tknow how; tumbled through a sort of gig, in which an old gentleman and adog were dozing; stepped with an incoherent apology over the side of anopen carriage, in which were four gentlemen engaged in a hot dispute;tripped at the far side in getting out, and fell flat across the backsof a pair of horses, who instantly began plunging and threw me headforemost in the dust. 

To those who observed my reckless charge, without being in the secret ofmy object, I must have appeared demented. Fortunately, the interestingbarouche had passed before the catastrophe, and covered as I was withdust, and my hat blocked, you may be sure I did not care to presentmyself before the object of my Quixotic devotion. 

I stood for a while amid a storm of _sacré_-ing, tempereddisagreeably with laughter; and in the midst of these, while endeavoringto beat the dust from my clothes with my handkerchief, I heard a voicewith which I was acquainted call, "Monsieur Beckett. "

I looked and saw the Marquis peeping from a carriage-window. It was awelcome sight. In a moment I was at his carriage side. 

"You may as well leave Versailles, " he said; "you have learned, nodoubt, that there is not a bed to hire in either of the hotels; and Ican add that there is not a room to let in the whole town. But I havemanaged something for you that will answer just as well. Tell yourservant to follow us, and get in here and sit beside me. "

Fortunately an opening in the closely-packed carriages had justoccurred, and mine was approaching. 

I directed the servant to follow us; and the Marquis having said a wordto his driver, we were immediately in motion. 

"I will bring you to a comfortable place, the very existence of which isknown to but few Parisians, where, knowing how things were here, Isecured a room for you. It is only a mile away, and an old comfortableinn, called the Le Dragon Volant. It was fortunate for you that mytiresome business called me to this place so early. "

I think we had driven about a mile-and-a-half to the further side of thepalace when we found ourselves upon a narrow old road, with the woods ofVersailles on one side, and much older trees, of a size seldom seen inFrance, on the other. 

We pulled up before an antique and solid inn, built of Caen stone, in afashion richer and more florid than was ever usual in such houses, andwhich indicated that it was originally designed for the private mansionof some person of wealth, and probably, as the wall bore many carvedshields and supporters, of distinction also. A kind of porch, lessancient than the rest, projected hospitably with a wide and florid arch, over which, cut in high relief in stone, and painted and gilded, was thesign of the inn. This was the Flying Dragon, with wings of brilliant redand gold, expanded, and its tail, pale green and gold, twisted andknotted into ever so many rings, and ending in a burnished point barbedlike the dart of death. 

"I shan't go in--but you will find it a comfortable place; at all eventsbetter than nothing. I would go in with you, but my incognito forbids. You will, I daresay, be all the better pleased to learn that the inn ishaunted--I should have been, in my young days, I know. But don't alludeto that awful fact in hearing of your host, for I believe it is a soresubject. Adieu. If you want to enjoy yourself at the ball, take myadvice and go in a domino. I think I shall look in; and certainly, if Ido, in the same costume. How shall we recognize one another? Let me see, something held in the fingers--a flower won't do, so many people willhave flowers. Suppose you get a red cross a couple of inches long--you're an Englishman--stitched or pinned on the breast of your domino, and I a white one? Yes, that will do very well; and whatever room you gointo keep near the door till we meet. I shall look for you at all thedoors I pass; and you, in the same way, for me; and we _must_ findeach other soon. So that is understood. I can't enjoy a thing of thatkind with any but a young person; a man of my age requires the contagionof young spirits and the companionship of someone who enjoys everythingspontaneously. Farewell; we meet tonight. "

By this time I was standing on the road; I shut the carriage-door; bidhim good-bye; and away he drove. 

Chapter XI

THE DRAGON VOLANT

I took one look about me. 

The building was picturesque; the trees made it more so. The antique andsequestered character of the scene contrasted strangely with the glareand bustle of the Parisian life, to which my eye and ear had becomeaccustomed. 

Then I examined the gorgeous old sign for a minute or two. Next Isurveyed the exterior of the house more carefully. It was large andsolid, and squared more with my ideas of an ancient English hostelrie, such as the Canterbury Pilgrims might have put up at, than a Frenchhouse of entertainment. Except, indeed, for a round turret, that rose atthe left flank of the house, and terminated in the extinguisher-shapedroof that suggests a French château. 

I entered and announced myself as Monsieur Beckett, for whom a room hadbeen taken. I was received with all the consideration due to an Englishmilord, with, of course, an unfathomable purse. 

My host conducted me to my apartment. It was a large room, a littlesomber, paneled with dark wainscoting, and furnished in a stately andsomber style, long out of date. There was a wide hearth, and a heavymantelpiece, carved with shields, in which I might, had I been curiousenough, have discovered a correspondence with the heraldry on the outerwalls. There was something interesting, melancholy, and even depressingin all this. I went to the stone-shafted window, and looked out upon asmall park, with a thick wood, forming the background of a château whichpresented a cluster of such conical-topped turrets as I have just nowmentioned. 

The wood and château were melancholy objects. They showed signs ofneglect, and almost of decay; and the gloom of fallen grandeur, and acertain air of desertion hung oppressively over the scene. 

I asked my host the name of the château. 

"That, Monsieur, is the Château de la Carque, " he answered. 

"It is a pity it is so neglected, " I observed. "I should say, perhaps, apity that its proprietor is not more wealthy?"

"Perhaps so, Monsieur. "

"_Perhaps_?" I repeated, and looked at him. "Then I suppose he isnot very popular. "

"Neither one thing nor the other, Monsieur, " he answered; "I meant onlythat we could not tell what use he might make of riches. "

"And who is he?" I inquired. 

"The Count de St. Alyre. "

"Oh! The Count! You are quite sure?" I asked, very eagerly. 

It was now the innkeeper's turn to look at me. 

"_Quite_ sure, Monsieur, the Count de St. Alyre. "

"Do you see much of him in this part of the world?"

"Not a great deal, Monsieur; he is often absent for a considerabletime. "

"And is he poor?" I inquired. 

"I pay rent to him for this house. It is not much; but I find he cannotwait long for it, " he replied, smiling satirically. 

"From what I have heard, however, I should think he cannot be verypoor?" I continued. 

"They say, Monsieur, he plays. I know not. He certainly is not rich. About seven months ago, a relation of his died in a distant place. Hisbody was sent to the Count's house here, and by him buried in Père laChaise, as the poor gentleman had desired. The Count was in profoundaffliction; although he got a handsome legacy, they say, by that death. But money never seems to do him good for any time. "

"He is old, I believe?"

"Old? We call him the 'Wandering Jew, ' except, indeed, that he has notalways the five _sous_ in his pocket. Yet, Monsieur, his couragedoes not fail him. He has taken a young and handsome wife. "

"And she?" I urged--

"Is the Countess de St. Alyre. "

"Yes; but I fancy we may say something more? She has attributes?"

"Three, Monsieur, three, at least most amiable. "

"Ah! And what are they?"

"Youth, beauty, and--diamonds. "

I laughed. The sly old gentleman was foiling my curiosity. 

"I see, my friend, " said I, "you are reluctant--"

"To quarrel with the Count, " he concluded. "True. You see, Monsieur, hecould vex me in two or three ways, so could I him. But, on the whole, itis better each to mind his business, and to maintain peaceful relations;you understand. "

It was, therefore, no use trying, at least for the present. Perhaps hehad nothing to relate. Should I think differently, by-and-by, I couldtry the effect of a few Napoleons. Possibly he meant to extract them. 

The host of the Dragon Volant was an elderly man, thin, bronzed, intelligent, and with an air of decision, perfectly military. I learnedafterwards that he had served under Napoleon in his early Italiancampaigns. 

"One question, I think you may answer, " I said, "without risking aquarrel. Is the Count at home?"

"He has many homes, I conjecture, " said the host evasively. "But--but Ithink I may say, Monsieur, that he is, I believe, at present staying atthe Château de la Carque. "

I looked out of the window, more interested than ever, across theundulating grounds to the château, with its gloomy background offoliage. 

"I saw him today, in his carriage at Versailles, " I said. 

"Very natural. "

"Then his carriage, and horses, and servants, are at the château?"

"The carriage he puts up here, Monsieur, and the servants are hired forthe occasion. There is but one who sleeps at the château. Such a lifemust be terrifying for Madame the Countess, " he replied. 

"The old screw!" I thought. "By this torture, he hopes to extract herdiamonds. What a life! What fiends to contend with--jealousy andextortion!"

The knight having made his speech to himself, cast his eyes once moreupon the enchanter's castle, and heaved a gentle sigh--a sigh oflonging, of resolution, and of love. 

What a fool I was! And yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser aswe grow older? It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we goon; but, still, we are madmen all the same. 

"Well, St. Clair, " said I, as my servant entered, and began to arrangemy things. 

"You have got a bed?"

"In the cock-loft, Monsieur, among the spiders, and, _par ma foi_!the cats and the owls. But we agree very well. _Vive la bagatelle_!"

"I had no idea it was so full. "

"Chiefly the servants, Monsieur, of those persons who were fortunateenough to get apartments at Versailles. "

"And what do you think of the Dragon Volant?"

"The Dragon Volant! Monsieur; the old fiery dragon! The devil himself, if all is true! On the faith of a Christian, Monsieur, they say thatdiabolical miracles have taken place in this house. "

"What do you mean? _Revenants_?"

"Not at all, sir; I wish it was no worse. _Revenants_? No! Peoplewho have never returned--who vanished, before the eyes of half-a-dozenmen all looking at them. "

"What do you mean, St. Clair? Let us hear the story, or miracle, orwhatever it is. "

"It is only this, Monsieur, that an ex-master-of-the-horse of the lateking, who lost his head--Monsieur will have the goodness to recollect, in the revolution--being permitted by the Emperor to return to France, lived here in this hotel, for a month, and at the end of that timevanished, visibly, as I told you, before the faces of half-a-dozencredible witnesses! The other was a Russian nobleman, six feet high andupwards, who, standing in the center of the room, downstairs, describingto seven gentlemen of unquestionable veracity the last moments of Peterthe Great, and having a glass of _eau de vie_ in his left hand, andhis _tasse de cafe, _ nearly finished, in his right, in like mannervanished. His boots were found on the floor where he had been standing;and the gentleman at his right found, to his astonishment, his cup ofcoffee in his fingers, and the gentleman at his left, his glass of_eau de vie_--"

"Which he swallowed in his confusion, " I suggested. 

"Which was preserved for three years among the curious articles of thishouse, and was broken by the _curé_ while conversing withMademoiselle Fidone in the housekeeper's room; but of the Russiannobleman himself, nothing more was ever seen or heard. _Parbleu_!when _we_ go out of the Dragon Volant, I hope it may be by thedoor. I heard all this, Monsieur, from the postilion who drove us. "

"Then it _must_ be true!" said I, jocularly: but I was beginning tofeel the gloom of the view, and of the chamber in which I stood; therehad stolen over me, I know not how, a presentiment of evil; and my jokewas with an effort, and my spirit flagged. 

Chapter XII

THE MAGICIAN

No more brilliant spectacle than this masked ball could be imagined. Among other _salons_ and galleries, thrown open, was the enormousPerspective of the "Grande Galerie des Glaces, " lighted up on thatoccasion with no less than four thousand wax candles, reflected andrepeated by all the mirrors, so that the effect was almost dazzling. Thegrand suite of _salons_ was thronged with masques, in everyconceivable costume. There was not a single room deserted. Everyplacewas animated with music voices, brilliant colors, flashing jewels, thehilarity of extemporized comedy, and all the spirited incidents of acleverly sustained masquerade. I had never seen before anything in theleast comparable to this magnificent _fete. _ I moved along, indolently, in my domino and mask, loitering, now and then, to enjoy aclever dialogue, a farcical song, or an amusing monologue, but, at thesame time, keeping my eyes about me, lest my friend in the black domino, with the little white cross on his breast, should pass me by. 

I had delayed and looked about me, specially, at every door I passed, asthe Marquis and I had agreed; but he had not yet appeared. 

While I was thus employed, in the very luxury of lazy amusement, I saw agilded sedan chair, or, rather, a Chinese palanquin, exhibiting thefantastic exuberance of "Celestial" decoration, borne forward on gildedpoles by four richly-dressed Chinese; one with a wand in his handmarched in front, and another behind; and a slight and solemn man, witha long black beard, a tall fez, such as a dervish is represented aswearing, walked close to its side. A strangely-embroidered robe fellover his shoulders, covered with hieroglyphic symbols; the embroiderywas in black and gold, upon a variegated ground of brilliant colors. Therobe was bound about his waist with a broad belt of gold, withcabalistic devices traced on it in dark red and black; red stockings, and shoes embroidered with gold, and pointed and curved upward at thetoes, in Oriental fashion, appeared below the skirt of the robe. Theman's face was dark, fixed, and solemn, and his eyebrows black, andenormously heavy--he carried a singular-looking book under his arm, awand of polished black wood in his other hand, and walked with his chinsunk on his breast, and his eyes fixed upon the floor. The man in frontwaved his wand right and left to clear the way for the advancingpalanquin, the curtains of which were closed; and there was something sosingular, strange and solemn about the whole thing, that I felt at onceinterested. 

I was very well pleased when I saw the bearers set down their burthenwithin a few yards of the spot on which I stood. 

The bearers and the men with the gilded wands forthwith clapped theirhands, and in silence danced round the palanquin a curious andhalf-frantic dance, which was yet, as to figures and postures, perfectlymethodical. This was soon accompanied by a clapping of hands and aha-ha-ing, rhythmically delivered. 

While the dance was going on a hand was lightly laid on my arm, and, looking round, a black domino with a white cross stood beside me. 

"I am so glad I have found you, " said the Marquis; "and at this moment. This is the best group in the rooms. _You_ must speak to thewizard. About an hour ago I lighted upon them, in another _salon, _and consulted the oracle by putting questions. I never was more amazed. Although his answers were a little disguised it was soon perfectly plainthat he knew every detail about the business, which no one on earth hadheard of but myself, and two or three other men, about the most cautiousPersons in France. I shall never forget that shock. I saw other peoplewho consulted him, evidently as much surprised and more frightened thanI. I came with the Count de St. Alyre and the Countess. "

He nodded toward a thin figure, also in a domino. It was the Count. 

"Come, " he said to me, "I'll introduce you. "

I followed, you may suppose, readily enough. 

The Marquis presented me, with a very prettily-turned allusion to myfortunate intervention in his favor at the Belle Étoile; and the Countoverwhelmed me with polite speeches, and ended by saying, what pleasedme better still:

"The Countess is near us, in the next salon but one, chatting with herold friend the Duchesse d'Argensaque; I shall go for her in a fewminutes; and when I bring her here, she shall make your acquaintance;and thank you, also, for your assistance, rendered with so much couragewhen we were so very disagreeably interrupted. "

"You must, positively, speak with the magician, " said the Marquis to theCount de St. Alyre, "you will be so much amused. _I_ did so; and, Iassure you, I could not have anticipated such answers! I don't know whatto believe. "

"Really! Then, by all means, let us try, " he replied. 

We three approached, together, the side of the palanquin, at which theblack-bearded magician stood. 

A young man, in a Spanish dress, who, with a friend at his side, hadjust conferred with the conjuror, was saying, as he passed us by:

"Ingenious mystification! Who is that in the palanquin? He seems to knoweverybody!"

The Count, in his mask and domino, moved along, stiffly, with us, towardthe palanquin. A clear circle was maintained by the Chinese attendants, and the spectators crowded round in a ring. 

One of these men--he who with a gilded wand had preceded theprocession--advanced, extending his empty hand, palm upward. 

"Money?" inquired the Count. 

"Gold, " replied the usher. 

The Count placed a piece of money in his hand; and I and the Marquiswere each called on in turn to do likewise as we entered the circle. Wepaid accordingly. 

The conjuror stood beside the palanquin, its silk curtain in his hand;his chin sunk, with its long, jet-black beard, on his chest; the outerhand grasping the black wand, on which he leaned; his eyes were lowered, as before, to the ground; his face looked absolutely lifeless. Indeed, Inever saw face or figure so moveless, except in death. The firstquestion the Count put, was: "Am I married, or unmarried?"

The conjuror drew back the curtain quickly, and placed his ear toward arichly-dressed Chinese, who sat in the litter; withdrew his head, andclosed the curtain again; and then answered: "Yes. "

The same preliminary was observed each time, so that the man with theblack wand presented himself, not as a prophet, but as a medium; andanswered, as it seemed, in the words of a greater than himself. 

Two or three questions followed, the answers to which seemed to amusethe Marquis very much; but the point of which I could not see, for Iknew next to nothing of the Count's peculiarities and adventures. 

"Does my wife love me?" asked he, playfully. 

"As well as you deserve. "

"Whom do I love best in the world?"

"Self. "

"Oh! That I fancy is pretty much the case with everyone. But, puttingmyself out of the question, do I love anything on earth better than mywife?"

"Her diamonds. "

"Oh!" said the Count. The Marquis, I could see, laughed. 

"Is it true, " said the Count, changing the conversation peremptorily, "that there has been a battle in Naples?"

"No; in France. "

"Indeed, " said the Count, satirically, with a glance round. 

"And may I inquire between what powers, and on what particular quarrel?"

"Between the Count and Countess de St. Alyre, and about a document theysubscribed on the 25th July, 1811. "

The Marquis afterwards told me that this was the date of their marriagesettlement. 

The Count stood stock-still for a minute or so; and one could fancy thatthey saw his face flushing through his mask. 

Nobody, but we two, knew that the inquirer was the Count de St. Alyre. 

I thought he was puzzled to find a subject for his next question; and, perhaps, repented having entangled himself in such a colloquy. If so, hewas relieved; for the Marquis, touching his arms, whispered. 

"Look to your right, and see who is coming. "

I looked in the direction indicated by the Marquis, and I saw a gauntfigure stalking toward us. It was not a masque. The face was broad, scarred, and white. In a word, it was the ugly face of ColonelGaillarde, who, in the costume of a corporal of the Imperial Guard, withhis left arm so adjusted as to look like a stump, leaving the lower partof the coat-sleeve empty, and pinned up to the breast. There were stripsof very real sticking-plaster across his eyebrow and temple, where mystick had left its mark, to score, hereafter, among the more honorablescars of war. 

Chapter XIII

THE ORACLE TELLS ME WONDERS

I forgot for a moment how impervious my mask and domino were to the hardstare of the old campaigner, and was preparing for an animated scuffle. It was only for a moment, of course; but the count cautiously drew alittle back as the gasconading corporal, in blue uniform, white vest, and white gaiters--for my friend Gaillarde was as loud and swaggering inhis assumed character as in his real one of a colonel of dragoons--drewnear. He had already twice all but got himself turned out of doors forvaunting the exploits of Napoleon le Grand, in terrific mock-heroics, and had very nearly come to hand-grips with a Prussian hussar. In fact, he would have been involved in several sanguinary rows already, had nothis discretion reminded him that the object of his coming there at all, namely, to arrange a meeting with an affluent widow, on whom he believedhe had made a tender impression, would not have been promoted by hispremature removal from the festive scene of which he was an ornament, incharge of a couple of _gendarmes_. 

"Money! Gold! Bah! What money can a wounded soldier like your humbleservant have amassed, with but his sword-hand left, which, beingnecessarily occupied, places not a finger at his command with which toscrape together the spoils of a routed enemy?"

"No gold from him, " said the magician. "His scars frank him. "

"Bravo, Monsieur le prophète! Bravissimo! Here I am. Shall I begin, _mon sorcier_, without further loss of time, to question you?"

Without waiting for an answer, he commenced, in stentorian tones. Afterhalf-a-dozen questions and answers, he asked: "Whom do I pursue atpresent?"

"Two persons. "

"Ha! Two? Well, who are they?"

"An Englishman, whom if you catch, he will kill you; and a French widow, whom if you find, she will spit in your face. "

"Monsieur le magicien calls a spade a spade, and knows that his clothprotects him. No matter! Why do I pursue them?"

"The widow has inflicted a wound on your heart, and the Englishman awound on your head. They are each separately too strong for you; takecare your pursuit does not unite them. "

"Bah! How could that be?"

"The Englishman protects ladies. He has got that fact into your head. The widow, if she sees, will marry him. It takes some time, she willreflect, to become a colonel, and the Englishman is unquestionablyyoung. "

"I will cut his cock's-comb for him, " he ejaculated with an oath and agrin; and in a softer tone he asked, "Where is she?"

"Near enough to be offended if you fail. "

"So she ought, by my faith. You are right, Monsieur le prophète! Ahundred thousand thanks! Farewell!" And staring about him, andstretching his lank neck as high as he could, he strode away with hisscars, and white waistcoat and gaiters, and his bearskin shako. 

I had been trying to see the person who sat in the palanquin. I had onlyonce an opportunity of a tolerably steady peep. What I saw was singular. The oracle was dressed, as I have said, very richly, in the Chinesefashion. He was a figure altogether on a larger scale than theinterpreter, who stood outside. The features seemed to me large andheavy, and the head was carried with a downward inclination! The eyeswere closed, and the chin rested on the breast of his embroideredpelisse. The face seemed fixed, and the very image of apathy. Itscharacter and _pose_ seemed an exaggerated repetition of theimmobility of the figure who communicated with the noisy outer world. This face looked blood-red; but that was caused, I concluded, by thelight entering through the red silk curtains. All this struck me almostat a glance; I had not many seconds in which to make my observation. Theground was now clear, and the Marquis said, "Go forward, my friend. "

I did so. When I reached the magician, as we called the man with theblack wand, I glanced over my shoulder to see whether the Count wasnear. 

No, he was some yards behind; and he and the Marquis, whose curiosityseemed to be by this time satisfied, were now conversing generally uponsome subject of course quite different. 

I was relieved, for the sage seemed to blurt out secrets in anunexpected way; and some of mine might not have amused the Count. 

I thought for a moment. I wished to test the prophet. AChurch-of-England man was a _rara avis_ in Paris. 

"What is my religion?" I asked. 

"A beautiful heresy, " answered the oracle instantly. 

"A heresy?--and pray how is it named?"

"Love. "

"Oh! Then I suppose I am a polytheist, and love a great many?"

"One. "

"But, seriously, " I asked, intending to turn the course of our colloquya little out of an embarrassing channel, "have I ever learned any wordsof devotion by heart?"

"Yes. "

"Can you repeat them?"

"Approach. "

I did, and lowered my ear. 

The man with the black wand closed the curtains, and whispered, slowlyand distinctly, these words which, I need scarcely tell you, I instantlyrecognized:

_"I may never see you more; and, oh! I that I could forgetyou!--go--farewell--for God's sake, go!"_

I started as I heard them. They were, you know, the last words whisperedto me by the Countess. 

"Good Heavens! How miraculous! Words heard most assuredly, by no ear onearth but my own and the lady's who uttered them, till now!"

I looked at the impassive face of the spokesman with the wand. There wasno trace of meaning, or even of a consciousness that the words he haduttered could possibly interest me. 

"What do I most long for?" I asked, scarcely knowing what I said. 

"Paradise. "

"And what prevents my reaching it?"

"A black veil. "

Stronger and stronger! The answers seemed to me to indicate the minutestacquaintance with every detail of my little romance, of which not eventhe Marquis knew anything! And I, the questioner, masked and robed sothat my own brother could not have known me!

"You said I loved someone. Am I loved in return?" I asked. 

"Try. "

I was speaking lower than before, and stood near the dark man with thebeard, to prevent the necessity of his speaking in a loud key. 

"Does anyone love me?" I repeated. 

"Secretly, " was the answer. 

"Much or little?" I inquired. 

"Too well. "

"How long will that love last?"

"Till the rose casts its leaves. "

The rose--another allusion!

"Then--darkness!" I sighed. "But till then I live in light. "

"The light of violet eyes. "

Love, if not a religion, as the oracle had just pronounced it, is, atleast, a superstition. How it exalts the imagination! How it enervatesthe reason! How credulous it makes us!

All this which, in the case of another I should have laughed at, mostpowerfully affected me in my own. It inflamed my ardor, and half crazedmy brain, and even influenced my conduct. 

The spokesman of this wonderful trick--if trick it were--now waved mebackward with his wand, and as I withdrew, my eyes still fixed upon thegroup, and this time encircled with an aura of mystery in my fancy;backing toward the ring of spectators, I saw him raise his handsuddenly, with a gesture of command, as a signal to the usher whocarried the golden wand in front. 

The usher struck his wand on the ground, and, in a shrill voice, proclaimed: "The great Confu is silent for an hour. "

Instantly the bearers pulled down a sort of blind of bamboo, whichdescended with a sharp clatter, and secured it at the bottom; and thenthe man in the tall fez, with the black beard and wand, began a sort ofdervish dance. In this the men with the gold wands joined, and finally, in an outer ring, the bearers, the palanquin being the center of thecircles described by these solemn dancers, whose pace, little by little, quickened, whose gestures grew sudden, strange, frantic, as the motionbecame swifter and swifter, until at length the whirl became so rapidthat the dancers seemed to fly by with the speed of a mill-wheel, andamid a general clapping of hands, and universal wonder, these strangeperformers mingled with the crowd, and the exhibition, for the time atleast, ended. 

The Marquis d'Harmonville was standing not far away, looking on theground, as one could judge by his attitude and musing. I approached, andhe said:

"The Count has just gone away to look for his wife. It is a pity she wasnot here to consult the prophet; it would have been amusing, I daresay, to see how the Count bore it. Suppose we follow him. I have asked him tointroduce you. "

With a beating heart, I accompanied the Marquis d'Harmonville. 

Chapter XIV

MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIÈRE

We wandered through the _salons_, the Marquis and I. It was no easymatter to find a friend in rooms so crowded. 

"Stay here, " said the Marquis, "I have thought of a way of finding him. Besides, his jealousy may have warned him that there is no particularadvantage to be gained by presenting you to his wife; I had better goand reason with him, as you seem to wish an introduction so very much. "

This occurred in the room that is now called the "Salon d'Apollon. " Thepaintings remained in my memory, and my adventure of that evening wasdestined to occur there. 

I sat down upon a sofa, and looked about me. Three or four personsbeside myself were seated on this roomy piece of gilded furniture. Theywere chatting all very gaily; all--except the person who sat next me, and she was a lady. Hardly two feet interposed between us. The lady satapparently in a reverie. Nothing could be more graceful. She wore thecostume perpetuated in Collignan's full-length portrait of Mademoisellede la Valière. It is, as you know, not only rich, but elegant. Her hairwas powdered, but one could perceive that it was naturally a dark brown. One pretty little foot appeared, and could anything be more exquisitethan her hand?

It was extremely provoking that this lady wore her mask, and did not, asmany did, hold it for a time in her hand. 

I was convinced that she was pretty. Availing myself of the privilege ofa masquerade, a microcosm in which it is impossible, except by voice andallusion, to distinguish friend from foe, I spoke:

"It is not easy, Mademoiselle, to deceive me, " I began. 

"So much the better for Monsieur, " answered the mask, quietly. 

"I mean, " I said, determined to tell my fib, "that beauty is a giftmore difficult to conceal than Mademoiselle supposes. "

"Yet Monsieur has succeeded very well, " she said in the same sweetand careless tones. 

"I see the costume of this, the beautiful Mademoiselle de la Valière, upon a form that surpasses her own; I raise my eyes, and I behold amask, and yet I recognize the lady; beauty is like that precious stonein the 'Arabian Nights, ' which emits, no matter how concealed, a lightthat betrays it. "

"I know the story, " said the young lady. "The light betrayed it, not inthe sun but in darkness. Is there so little light in these rooms, Monsieur, that a poor glowworm can show so brightly? I thought we werein a luminous atmosphere, wherever a certain Countess moved?"

Here was an awkward speech! How was I to answer? This lady might be, asthey say some ladies are, a lover of mischief, or an intimate of theCountess de St. Alyre. Cautiously, therefore, I inquired, "What Countess?"

"If you know me, you must know that she is my dearest friend. Is she notbeautiful?"

"How can I answer, there are so many countesses. "

"Everyone who knows me, knows who my best beloved friend is. You don'tknow me?"

"That is cruel. I can scarcely believe I am mistaken. "

"With whom were you walking, just now?" she asked. 

"A gentleman, a friend, " I answered. 

"I saw him, of course, a friend; but I think I know him, and should liketo be certain. Is he not a certain Marquis?"

Here was another question that was extremely awkward. 

"There are so many people here, and one may walk, at one time with one, and at another with a different one, that--"

"That an unscrupulous person has no difficulty in evading a simplequestion like mine. Know then, once for all, that nothing disgusts aperson of spirit so much as suspicion. You, Monsieur, are a gentleman ofdiscretion. I shall respect you accordingly. "

"Mademoiselle would despise me, were I to violate a confidence. "

"But you don't deceive me. You imitate your friend's diplomacy. I hatediplomacy. It means fraud and cowardice. Don't you think I know him? Thegentleman with the cross of white ribbon on his breast? I know theMarquis d'Harmonville perfectly. You see to what good purpose youringenuity has been expended. "

"To that conjecture I can answer neither yes nor no. "

"You need not. But what was your motive in mortifying a lady?"

"It is the last thing on earth I should do. "

"You affected to know me, and you don't; through caprice, orlistlessness, or curiosity, you wished to converse, not with a lady, butwith a costume. You admired, and you pretend to mistake me for another. But who is quite perfect? Is truth any longer to be found on earth?"

"Mademoiselle has formed a mistaken opinion of me. "

"And you also of me; you find me less foolish than you supposed. I knowperfectly whom you intend amusing with compliments and melancholydeclamation, and whom, with that amiable purpose, you have beenseeking. "

"Tell me whom you mean, " I entreated. "Upon one condition. "

"What is that?"

"That you will confess if I name the lady. "

"You describe my object unfairly, " I objected. "I can't admit that Iproposed speaking to any lady in the tone you describe. "

"Well, I shan't insist on that; only if I name the lady, you willpromise to admit that I am right. "

"_Must_ I promise?"

"Certainly not, there is no compulsion; but your promise is the onlycondition on which I will speak to you again. "

I hesitated for a moment; but how could she possibly tell? The Countesswould scarcely have admitted this little romance to anyone; and the maskin the La Vallière costume could not possibly know who the masked dominobeside her was. 

"I consent, " I said, "I promise. "

"You must promise on the honor of a gentleman. "

"Well, I do; on the honor of a gentleman. "

"Then this lady is the Countess de St. Alyre. "

I was unspeakably surprised; I was disconcerted; but I remembered mypromise, and said:

"The Countess de St. Alyre _is_, unquestionably, the lady to whom Ihoped for an introduction tonight; but I beg to assure you, also on thehonor of a gentleman, that she has not the faintest imaginable suspicionthat I was seeking such an honor, nor, in all probability, does sheremember that such a person as I exists. I had the honor to render herand the Count a trifling service, too trifling, I fear, to have earnedmore than an hour's recollection. "

"The world is not so ungrateful as you suppose; or if it be, there are, nevertheless, a few hearts that redeem it. I can answer for the Countessde St. Alyre, she never forgets a kindness. She does not show all shefeels; for she is unhappy, and cannot. "

"Unhappy! I feared, indeed, that might be. But for all the rest that youare good enough to suppose, it is but a flattering dream. "

"I told you that I am the Countess's friend, and being so I must knowsomething of her character; also, there are confidences between us, andI may know more than you think of those trifling services of which yousuppose the recollection is so transitory. "

I was becoming more and more interested. I was as wicked as other youngmen, and the heinousness of such a pursuit was as nothing, now thatself-love and all the passions that mingle in such a romance wereroused. The image of the beautiful Countess had now again quitesuperseded the pretty counterpart of La Vallièe, who was before me. Iwould have given a great deal to hear, in solemn earnest, that she didremember the champion who, for her sake, had thrown himself before thesaber of an enraged dragoon, with only a cudgel in his hand, andconquered. 

"You say the Countess is unhappy, " said I. "What causes herunhappiness?"

"Many things. Her husband is old, jealous, and tyrannical. Is not thatenough? Even when relieved from his society, she is lonely. "

"But you are her friend?" I suggested. 

"And you think one friend enough?" she answered; "she has one alone, towhom she can open her heart. "

"Is there room for another friend?"

"Try. "

"How can I find a way?"

"She will aid you. "

"How?"

She answered by a question. "Have you secured rooms in either of thehotels of Versailles?"

"No, I could not. I am lodged in the Dragon Volant, which stands at theverge of the grounds of the Château de la Carque. "

"That is better still. I need not ask if you have courage for anadventure. I need not ask if you are a man of honor. A lady may trustherself to you, and fear nothing. There are few men to whom theinterview, such as I shall arrange, could be granted with safety. Youshall meet her at two o'clock this morning in the Park of the Château dela Carque. What room do you occupy in the Dragon Volant?"

I was amazed at the audacity and decision of this girl. Was she, as wesay in England, hoaxing me?

"I can describe that accurately, " said I. "As I look from the rear ofthe house, in which my apartment is, I am at the extreme right, next theangle; and one pair of stairs up, from the hall. "

"Very well; you must have observed, if you looked into the park, two orthree clumps of chestnut and lime trees, growing so close together as toform a small grove. You must return to your hotel, change your dress, and, preserving a scrupulous secrecy as to why or where you go, leavethe Dragon Volant, and climb the park wall, unseen; you will easilyrecognize the grove I have mentioned; there you will meet the Countess, who will grant you an audience of a few minutes, who will expect themost scrupulous reserve on your part, and who will explain to you, in afew words, a great deal which I could not so well tell you here. "

I cannot describe the feeling with which I heard these words. I wasastounded. Doubt succeeded. I could not believe these agitating words. 

"Mademoiselle will believe that if I only dared assure myself that sogreat a happiness and honor were really intended for me, my gratitudewould be as lasting as my life. But how dare I believe that Mademoiselledoes not speak, rather from her own sympathy or goodness, than from acertainty that the Countess de St. Alyre would concede so great anhonor?"

"Monsieur believes either that I am not, as I pretend to be, in thesecret which he hitherto supposed to be shared by no one but theCountess and himself, or else that I am cruelly mystifying him. That Iam in her confidence, I swear by all that is dear in a whisperedfarewell. By the last companion of this flower!" and she took for amoment in her fingers the nodding head of a white rosebud that wasnestled in her bouquet. "By my own good star, and hers--or shall I callit our 'belle étoile?' Have I said enough?"

"Enough?" I repeated, "more than enough--a thousand thanks. "

"And being thus in her confidence, I am clearly her friend; and being afriend would it be friendly to use her dear name so; and all for sake ofpracticing a vulgar trick upon you--a stranger?"

"Mademoiselle will forgive me. Remember how very precious is the hope ofseeing, and speaking to the Countess. Is it wonderful, then, that Ishould falter in my belief? You have convinced me, however, and willforgive my hesitation. "

"You will be at the place I have described, then, at two o'clock?"

"Assuredly, " I answered. 

"And Monsieur, I know, will not fail through fear. No, he need notassure me; his courage is already proved. "

"No danger, in such a case, will be unwelcome to me. "

"Had you not better go now, Monsieur, and rejoin your friend?"

"I promised to wait here for my friend's return. The Count de St. Alyresaid that he intended to introduce me to the Countess. "

"And Monsieur is so simple as to believe him?"

"Why should I not?"

"Because he is jealous and cunning. You will see. He will neverintroduce you to his wife. He will come here and say he cannot find her, and promise another time. "

"I think I see him approaching, with my friend. No--there is no ladywith him. "

"I told you so. You will wait a long time for that happiness, if it isnever to reach you except through his hands. In the meantime, you hadbetter not let him see you so near me. He will suspect that we have beentalking of his wife; and that will whet his jealousy and his vigilance. "

I thanked my unknown friend in the mask, and withdrawing a few steps, came, by a little "circumbendibus, " upon the flank of the Count. Ismiled under my mask as he assured me that the Duchess de la Roqueme hadchanged her place, and taken the Countess with her; but he hoped, atsome very early time, to have an opportunity of enabling her to make myacquaintance. 

I avoided the Marquis d'Harmonville, who was following the Count. I wasafraid he might propose accompanying me home, and had no wish to beforced to make an explanation. 

I lost myself quickly, therefore, in the crowd, and moved, as rapidly asit would allow me, toward the Galerie des Glaces, which lay in thedirection opposite to that in which I saw the Count and my friend theMarquis moving. 

Chapter XV

STRANGE STORY OF THE DRAGON VOLANT

These _fêtes_ were earlier in those days, and in France, than ourmodern balls are in London. I consulted my watch. It was a little pasttwelve. 

It was a still and sultry night; the magnificent suite of rooms, vast assome of them were, could not be kept at a temperature less thanoppressive, especially to people with masks on. In some places the crowdwas inconvenient, and the profusion of lights added to the heat. Iremoved my mask, therefore, as I saw some other people do, who were ascareless of mystery as I. I had hardly done so, and began to breathemore comfortably, when I heard a friendly English voice call me by myname. It was Tom Whistlewick, of the --th Dragoons. He had unmasked, with a very flushed face, as I did. He was one of those Waterloo heroes, new from the mint of glory, whom, as a body, all the world, exceptFrance, revered; and the only thing I knew against him, was a habit ofallaying his thirst, which was excessive at balls, _fêtes_, musicalparties, and all gatherings, where it was to be had, with champagne;and, as he introduced me to his friend, Monsieur Carmaignac, I observedthat he spoke a little thick. Monsieur Carmaignac was little, lean, andas straight as a ramrod. He was bald, took snuff, and wore spectacles;and, as I soon learned, held an official position. 

Tom was facetious, sly, and rather difficult to understand, in hispresent pleasant mood. He was elevating his eyebrows and screwing hislips oddly, and fanning himself vaguely with his mask. 

After some agreeable conversation I was glad to observe that hepreferred silence, and was satisfied with the _rôle_ of listener, as I and Monsieur Carmaignac chatted; and he seated himself, withextraordinary caution and indecision, upon a bench, beside us, andseemed very soon to find a difficulty in keeping his eyes open. 

"I heard you mention, " said the French gentleman, "that you had engagedan apartment in the Dragon Volant, about half a league from this. When Iwas in a different police department, about four years ago, two verystrange cases were connected with that house. One was of a wealthy_émigré_, permitted to return to France by the Em--by Napoleon. Hevanished. The other--equally strange--was the case of a Russian of rankand wealth. He disappeared just as mysteriously. "

"My servant, " I said, "gave me a confused account of some occurrences, and, as well as I recollect, he described the same persons--I mean areturned French nobleman and a Russian gentleman. But he made the wholestory so marvelous--I mean in the supernatural sense--that, I confess, Idid not believe a word of it. "

"No, there was nothing supernatural; but a great deal inexplicable, "said the French gentleman. "Of course, there may be theories; but thething was never explained, nor, so far as I know, was a ray of lightever thrown upon it. "

"Pray let me hear the story, " I said. "I think I have a claim, as itaffects my quarters. You don't suspect the people of the house?"

"Oh! it has changed hands since then. But there seemed to be a fatalityabout a particular room. "

"Could you describe that room?"

"Certainly. It is a spacious, paneled bedroom, up one pair of stairs, inthe back of the house, and at the extreme right, as you look from itswindows. "

"Ho! Really? Why, then, I have got the very room!" I said, beginning tobe more interested--perhaps the least bit in the world, disagreeably. "Did the people die, or were they actually spirited away?"

"No, they did not die--they disappeared very oddly. I'll tell you theparticulars--I happen to know them exactly, because I made an officialvisit, on the first occasion, to the house, to collect evidence; andalthough I did not go down there, upon the second, the papers camebefore me, and I dictated the official letter dispatched to therelations of the people who had disappeared; they had applied to thegovernment to investigate the affair. We had letters from the samerelations more than two years later, from which we learned that themissing men had never turned up. "

He took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at me. 

"Never! I shall relate all that happened, so far as we could discover. The French noble, who was the Chevalier Chateau Blassemare, unlike most_émigrés_ had taken the matter in time, sold a large portion of hisproperty before the revolution had proceeded so far as to render thatnext to impossible, and retired with a large sum. He brought with himabout half a million of francs, the greater part of which he invested inthe French funds; a much larger sum remained in Austrian land andsecurities. You will observe then that this gentleman was rich, andthere was no allegation of his having lost money, or being in any wayembarrassed. You see?"

I assented. 

"This gentleman's habits were not expensive in proportion to his means. He had suitable lodgings in Paris; and for a time, society, andtheaters, and other reasonable amusements, engrossed him. He did notplay. He was a middleaged man, affecting youth, with the vanities whichare usual in such persons; but, for the rest, he was a gentle and politeperson, who disturbed nobody--a person, you see, not likely to provokean enmity. "

"Certainly not, " I agreed. 

"Early in the summer of 1811 he got an order permitting him to copya picture in one of these _salons_, and came down here, toVersailles, for the purpose. His work was getting on slowly. After atime he left his hotel here, and went, by way of change, to the DragonVolant; there he took, by special choice, the bedroom which has fallento you by chance. From this time, it appeared, he painted little; andseldom visited his apartments in Paris. One night he saw the host of theDragon Volant, and told him that he was going into Paris, to remain fora day or two, on very particular business; that his servant wouldaccompany him, but that he would retain his apartments at the DragonVolant, and return in a few days. He left some clothes there, but packeda portmanteau, took his dressing case and the rest, and, with hisservant behind his carriage, drove into Paris. You observe all this, Monsieur?"

"Most attentively, " I answered. 

"Well, Monsieur, as soon as they were approaching his lodgings, hestopped the carriage on a sudden, told his servant that he had changedhis mind; that he would sleep elsewhere that night, that he had veryparticular business in the north of France, not far from Rouen, that hewould set out before daylight on his journey, and return in a fortnight. He called a _fiacre_, took in his hand a leather bag which, theservant said, was just large enough to hold a few shirts and a coat, butthat it was enormously heavy, as he could testify, for he held it in hishand, while his master took out his purse to count thirty-six Napoleons, for which the servant was to account when he should return. He then senthim on, in the carriage; and he, with the bag I have mentioned, got intothe _fiacre_. Up to that, you see, the narrative is quite clear. "

"Perfectly, " I agreed. 

"Now comes the mystery, " said Monsieur Carmaignac. "After that, theCount Chateau Blassemare was never more seen, so far as we can make out, by acquaintance or friend. We learned that the day before the Count'sstockbroker had, by his direction, sold all his stock in the Frenchfunds, and handed him the cash it realized. The reason he gave him forthis measure tallied with what he said to his servant. He told him thathe was going to the north of France to settle some claims, and did notknow exactly how much might be required. The bag, which had puzzled theservant by its weight, contained, no doubt, a large sum in gold. WillMonsieur try my snuff?"

He politely tendered his open snuff-box, of which I partook, experimentally. 

"A reward was offered, " he continued, "when the inquiry was instituted, for any information tending to throw a light upon the mystery, whichmight be afforded by the driver of the _fiacre_ 'employed on thenight of' (so-and-so), 'at about the hour of half-past ten, by agentleman, with a black-leather bag-bag in his hand, who descended froma private carriage, and gave his servant some money, which he countedtwice over. ' About a hundred-and-fifty drivers applied, but not one ofthem was the right man. We did, however, elicit a curious and unexpectedpiece of evidence in quite another quarter. What a racket that plagueyharlequin makes with his sword!"

"Intolerable!" I chimed in. 

The harlequin was soon gone, and he resumed. 

"The evidence I speak of came from a boy, about twelve years old, whoknew the appearance of the Count perfectly, having been often employedby him as a messenger. He stated that about half-past twelve o'clock, onthe same night--upon which you are to observe, there was a brilliantmoon--he was sent, his mother having been suddenly taken ill, for the_sage femme_ who lived within a stone's throw of the Dragon Volant. His father's house, from which he started, was a mile away, or more, from that inn, in order to reach which he had to pass round the park ofthe Chéteau de la Carque, at the site most remote from the point towhich he was going. It passes the old churchyard of St. Aubin, which isseparated from the road only by a very low fence, and two or threeenormous old trees. The boy was a little nervous as he approached thisancient cemetery; and, under the bright moonlight, he saw a man whom hedistinctly recognized as the Count, whom they designated by a sobriquetwhich means 'the man of smiles. ' He was looking rueful enough now, andwas seated on the side of a tombstone, on which he had laid a pistol, while he was ramming home the charge of another. 

"The boy got cautiously by, on tiptoe, with his eyes all the time on theCount Chateau Blassernare, or the man he mistook for him--his dress wasnot what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he could not bemistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern;but though he did not smile, it was the same face he knew so well. Nothing would make him swerve from that. If that were he, it was thelast time he was seen. He has never been heard of since. Nothing couldbe heard of him in the neighborhood of Rouen. There has been no evidenceof his death; and there is no sign that he is living. "

"That certainly is a most singular case, " I replied, and was about toask a question or two, when Tom Whistlewick who, without my observingit, had been taking a ramble, returned, a great deal more awake, and agreat deal less tipsy. 

"I say, Carmaignac, it is getting late, and I must go; I really must, for the reason I told you--and, Beckett, we must soon meet again. "

"I regret very much, Monsieur, my not being able at present to relate toyou the other case, that of another tenant of the very same room--a casemore mysterious and sinister than the last--and which occurred in theautumn of the same year. "

"Will you both do a very good-natured thing, and come and dine with meat the Dragon Volant tomorrow?"

So, as we pursued our way along the Galerie des Glaces, I extractedtheir promise. 

"By Jove!" said Whistlewick, when this was done; "look at that pagoda, or sedan chair, or whatever it is, just where those fellows set it down, and not one of them near it! I can't imagine how they tell fortunes sodevilish well. Jack Nuffles--I met him here tonight--says they aregypsies--where are they, I wonder? I'll go over and have a peep at theprophet. "

I saw him plucking at the blinds, which were constructed something onthe principle of Venetian blinds; the red curtains were inside; but theydid not yield, and he could only peep under one that did not come quitedown. 

When he rejoined us, he related: "I could scarcely see the old fellow, it's so dark. He is covered with gold and red, and has an embroideredhat on like a mandarin's; he's fast asleep; and, by Jove, he smells likea polecat! It's worth going over only to have it to say. Fiew! pooh! oh!It is a perfume. Faugh!"

Not caring to accept this tempting invitation, we got along slowlytoward the door. I bade them good-night, reminding them of theirpromise. And so found my way at last to my carriage; and was soonrolling slowly toward the Dragon Volant, on the loneliest of roads, under old trees, and the soft moonlight. 

What a number of things had happened within the last two hours! what avariety of strange and vivid pictures were crowded together in thatbrief space! What an adventure was before me!

The silent, moonlighted, solitary road, how it contrasted with themany-eddied whirl of pleasure from whose roar and music, lights, diamonds and colors I had just extricated myself. 

The sight of lonely nature at such an hour, acts like a sudden sedative. The madness and guilt of my pursuit struck me with a momentarycompunction and horror. I wished I had never entered the labyrinth whichwas leading me, I knew not whither. It was too late to think of thatnow; but the bitter was already stealing into my cup; and vagueanticipations lay, for a few minutes, heavy on my heart. It would nothave taken much to make me disclose my unmanly state of mind to mylively friend Alfred Ogle, nor even to the milder ridicule of theagreeable Tom Whistlewick. 

Chapter XVI

THE PARC OF THE CHÂTEAU DE LA CARQUE

There was no danger of the Dragon Volant's closing its doors on thatoccasion till three or four in the morning. There were quartered theremany servants of great people, whose masters would not leave the balltill the last moment, and who could not return to their corners in theDragon Volant till their last services had been rendered. 

I knew, therefore, I should have ample time for my mysterious excursionwithout exciting curiosity by being shut out. 

And now we pulled up under the canopy of boughs, before the sign of theDragon Volant, and the light that shone from its hall-door. 

I dismissed my carriage, ran up the broad stair-case, mask in hand, withmy domino fluttering about me, and entered the large bedroom. The blackwainscoting and stately furniture, with the dark curtains of the verytall bed, made the night there more somber. 

An oblique patch of moonlight was thrown upon the floor from the windowto which I hastened. I looked out upon the landscape slumbering in thosesilvery beams. There stood the outline of the Château de la Carque, itschimneys and many turrets with their extinguisher-shaped roofs blackagainst the soft grey sky. There, also, more in the foreground, aboutmidway between the window where I stood and the château, but a little tothe left, I traced the tufted masses of the grove which the lady in themask had appointed as the trysting-place, where I and the beautifulCountess were to meet that night. 

I took "the bearings" of this gloomy bit of wood, whose foliageglimmered softly at top in the light of the moon. 

You may guess with what a strange interest and swelling of the heart Igazed on the unknown scene of my coming adventure. 

But time was flying, and the hour already near. I threw my robe upon asofa; I groped out a pair of hoots, which I substituted for those thinheelless shoes, in those days called "pumps, " without which a gentlemancould not attend an evening party. I put on my hat and, lastly, I took apair of loaded pistols, which I had been advised were satisfactorycompanions in the then unsettled state of French society; swarms ofdisbanded soldiers, some of them alleged to be desperate characters, being everywhere to be met with. These preparations made, I confess Itook a looking-glass to the window to see how I looked in the moonlight;and being satisfied, I replaced it, and ran downstairs. 

In the hall I called for my servant. 

"St. Clair, " said I; "I mean to take a little moonlight ramble, only tenminutes or so. You must not go to bed until I return. If the night isvery beautiful, I may possibly extend my ramble a little. "

So down the steps I lounged, looking first over my right, and then overmy left shoulder, like a man uncertain which direction to take, and Isauntered up the road, gazing now at the moon, and now at the thin whiteclouds in the opposite direction, whistling, all the time, an air whichI had picked up at one of the theatres. 

When I had got a couple of hundred yards away from the Dragon Volant, myminstrelsy totally ceased; and I turned about, and glanced sharply downthe road, that looked as white as hoar-frost under the moon, and saw thegable of the old inn, and a window, partly concealed by the foliage, with a dusky light shining from it. 

No sound of footstep was stirring; no sign of human figure in sight. Iconsulted my watch, which the light was sufficiently strong to enable meto do. It now wanted but eight minutes of the appointed hour. A thickmantle of ivy at this point covered the wall and rose in a clusteringhead at top. 

It afforded me facilities for scaling the wall, and a partial screen formy operations if any eye should chance to be looking that way. And nowit was done. I was in the park of the Château de la Carque, as nefariousa poacher as ever trespassed on the grounds of unsuspicious lord!

Before me rose the appointed grove, which looked as black as a clump ofgigantic hearse plumes. It seemed to tower higher and higher at everystep; and cast a broader and blacker shadow toward my feet. On Imarched, and was glad when I plunged into the shadow which concealed me. Now I was among the grand old lime and chestnut trees--my heart beatfast with expectation. 

This grove opened, a little, near the middle; and, in the space thuscleared, there stood with a surrounding flight of steps a small Greektemple or shrine, with a statue in the center. It was built of whitemarble with fluted Corinthian columns, and the crevices were tufted withgrass; moss had shown itself on pedestal and cornice, and signs of longneglect and decay were apparent in its discolored and weather-wornmarble. A few feet in front of the steps a fountain, fed from the greatponds at the other side of the château, was making a constant tinkle andsplashing in a wide marble basin, and the jet of water glimmered like ashower of diamonds in the broken moonlight. The very neglect andhalf-ruinous state of all this made it only the prettier, as well assadder. I was too intently watching for the arrival of the lady, in thedirection of the château, to study these things; but the half-notedeffect of them was romantic, and suggested somehow the grotto and thefountain, and the apparition of Egeria. 

As I watched a voice spoke to me, a little behind my left shoulder. Iturned, almost with a start, and the masque, in the costume ofMademoiselle de la Vallière, stood there. 

"The Countess will be here presently, " she said. The lady stood upon theopen space, and the moonlight fell unbroken upon her. Nothing could bemore becoming; her figure looked more graceful and elegant than ever. "In the meantime I shall tell you some peculiarities of her situation. She is unhappy; miserable in an ill--assorted marriage, with a jealoustyrant who now would constrain her to sell her diamonds, which are--"

"Worth thirty thousand pounds sterling. I heard all that from a friend. Can I aid the Countess in her unequal struggle? Say but how the greaterthe danger or the sacrifice, the happier will it make me. _Can_ Iaid her?"

"If you despise a danger--which, yet, is not a danger; if you despise, as she does, the tyrannical canons of the world; and if you arechivalrous enough to devote yourself to a lady's cause, with no rewardbut her poor gratitude; if you can do these things you can aid her, andearn a foremost place, not in her gratitude only, but in herfriendship. "

At those words the lady in the mask turned away and seemed to weep. 

I vowed myself the willing slave of the Countess. "But, " I added, "youtold me she would soon be here. "

"That is, if nothing unforeseen should happen; but with the eye of theCount de St. Alyre in the house, and open, it is seldom safe to stir. "

"Does she wish to see me?" I asked, with a tender hesitation. 

"First, say have you really thought of her, more than once, since theadventure of the Belle Étoile?"

"She never leaves my thoughts; day and night her beautiful eyes hauntme; her sweet voice is always in my ear. "

"Mine is said to resemble hers, " said the mask. 

"So it does, " I answered. "But it is only a resemblance. "

"Oh! then mine is better?"

"Pardon me, Mademoiselle, I did not say that. Yours is a sweet voice, but I fancy a little higher. "

"A little shriller, you would say, " answered the De la Vallière, Ifancied a good deal vexed. 

"No, not shriller: your voice is not shrill, it is beautifully sweet;but not so pathetically sweet as hers. "

"That is prejudice, Monsieur; it is not true. "

I bowed; I could not contradict a lady. 

"I see, Monsieur, you laugh at me; you think me vain, because I claim insome points to be equal to the Countess de St. Alyre. I challenge you tosay, my hand, at least, is less beautiful than hers. " As she thus spokeshe drew her glove off, and extended her hand, back upward, in themoonlight. 

The lady seemed really nettled. It was undignified and irritating; forin this uninteresting competition the precious moments were flying, andmy interview leading apparently to nothing. 

"You will admit, then, that my hand is as beautiful as hers?"

"I cannot admit it. Mademoiselle, " said I, with the honesty ofirritation. "I will not enter into comparisons, but the Countess de St. Alyre is, in all respects, the most beautiful lady I ever beheld. "

The masque laughed coldly, and then, more and more softly, said, with asigh, "I will prove all I say. " And as she spoke she removed the mask:and the Countess de St. Alyre, smiling, confused, bashful, morebeautiful than ever, stood before me!

"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed. "How monstrously stupid I have been. And itwas to Madame la Comtesse that I spoke for so long in the _salon!_"I gazed on her in silence. And with a low sweet laugh of good nature sheextended her hand. I took it and carried it to my lips. 

"No, you must not do that, " she said quietly, "we are not old enoughfriends yet. I find, although you were mistaken, that you do rememberthe Countess of the Belle Étoile, and that you are a champion true andfearless. Had you yielded to the claims just now pressed upon you by therivalry of Mademoiselle de la Valière, in her mask, the Countess de St. Alyre should never have trusted or seen you more. I now am sure that youare true, as well as brave. You now know that I have not forgotten you;and, also, that if you would risk your life for me, I, too, would bravesome danger, rather than lose my friend forever. I have but a fewmoments more. Will you come here again tomorrow night, at a quarter pasteleven? I will be here at that moment; you must exercise the mostscrupulous care to prevent suspicion that you have come here, Monsieur. _You owe that to me_. "

She spoke these last words with the most solemn entreaty. 

I vowed again and again that I would die rather than permit the leastrashness to endanger the secret which made all the interest and value ofmy life. 

She was looking, I thought, more and more beautiful every moment. Myenthusiasm expanded in proportion. 

"You must come tomorrow night by a different route, " she said; "and ifyou come again, we can change it once more. At the other side of thechâteau there is a little churchyard, with a ruined chapel. Theneighbors are afraid to pass it by night. The road is deserted there, and a stile opens a way into these grounds. Cross it and you can find acovert of thickets, to within fifty steps of this spot. "

I promised, of course, to observe her instructions implicitly. 

"I have lived for more than a year in an agony of irresolution. I havedecided at last. I have lived a melancholy life; a lonelier life than ispassed in the cloister. I have had no one to confide in; no one toadvise me; no one to save me from the horrors of my existence. I havefound a brave and prompt friend at last. Shall I ever forget the heroictableau of the hall of the Belle Étoile? Have you--have you really keptthe rose I gave you, as we parted? Yes--you swear it. You need not; Itrust you. Richard, how often have I in solitude repeated your name, learned from my servant. Richard, my hero! Oh! Richard! Oh, my king! Ilove you!"

I would have folded her to my heart--thrown myself at her feet. But thisbeautiful and--shall I say it--inconsistent woman repelled me. 

"No, we must not waste our moments in extravagances. Understand my case. There is no such thing as indifference in the married state. Not to loveone's husband, " she continued, "is to hate him. The Count, ridiculous inall else, is formidable in his jealousy. In mercy, then, to me, observecaution. Affect to all you speak to, the most complete ignorance of allthe people in the Château de la Carque; and, if anyone in your presencementions the Count or Countess de St. Alyre, be sure you say you neversaw either. I shall have more to say to you tomorrow night. I havereasons that I cannot now explain, for all I do, and all I postpone. Farewell. Go! Leave me. "

She waved me back, peremptorily. I echoed her "farewell, " and obeyed. 

This interview had not lasted, I think, more than ten minutes. I scaledthe park wall again, and reached the Dragon Volant before its doors wereclosed. 

I lay awake in my bed, in a fever of elation. I saw, till the dawnbroke, and chased the vision, the beautiful Countess de St. Alyre, always in the dark, before me. 

Chapter XVII

THE TENANT OF THE PALANQUIN

The Marquis called on me next day. My late breakfast was still upon thetable. He had come, he said, to ask a favor. An accident had happened tohis carriage in the crowd on leaving the ball, and he begged, if I weregoing into Paris, a seat in mine. I was going in, and was extremely gladof his company. He came with me to my hotel; we went up to my rooms. Iwas surprised to see a man seated in an easy chair, with his backtowards us, reading a newspaper. He rose. It was the Count de St. Alyre, his gold spectacles on his nose; his black wig, in oily curls, lyingclose to his narrow head, and showing like carved ebony over a repulsivevisage of boxwood. His black muffler had been pulled down. His. Rightarm was in a sling. I don't know whether there was anything unusual inhis countenance that day, or whether it was but the effect of prejudicearising from all I had heard in my mysterious interview in his park, butI thought his countenance was more strikingly forbidding than I had seenit before. 

I was not callous enough in the ways of sin to meet this man, injured atleast in intent, thus suddenly, without a momentary disturbance. 

He smiled. 

"I called, Monsieur Beckett, in the hope of finding you here, " hecroaked, "and I meditated, I fear, taking a great liberty, but my friendthe Marquis d'Harmonville, on whom I have perhaps some claim, willperhaps give me the assistance I require so much. "

"With great pleasure, " said the Marquis, "but not till after sixo'clock. I must go this moment to a meeting of three or four people whomI cannot disappoint, and I know, perfectly, we cannot break up earlier. "

"What am I to do?" exclaimed the Count, "an hour would have done it all. Was ever _contretemps_ so unlucky?"

"I'll give you an hour, with pleasure, " said I. 

"How very good of you, Monsieur, I hardly dare to hope it. The business, for so gay and charming a man as Monsieur Beckett, is a little_funeste_. Pray read this note which reached me this morning. "

It certainly was not cheerful. It was a note stating that the body ofhis, the Count's cousin, Monsieur de St. Amand, who had died at hishouse, the Château Clery, had been, in accordance with his writtendirections, sent for burial at Père la Chaise, and, with the permissionof the Count de St. Alyre, would reach his house (the Château de laCarque) at about ten o'clock on the night following, to be conveyedthence in a hearse, with any member of the family who might wish toattend the obsequies. 

"I did not see the poor gentleman twice in my life, " said the Count, "but this office, as he has no other kinsman, disagreeable as it is, Icould scarcely decline, and so I want to attend at the office to havethe book signed, and the order entered. But here is another misery. Byill luck I have sprained my thumb, and can't sign my name for a week tocome. However, one name answers as well as another. Yours as well asmine. And as you are so good as to come with me, all will go right. "

Away we drove. The Count gave me a memorandum of the Christian andsurnames of the deceased, his age, the complaint he died of, and theusual particulars; also a note of the exact position in which a grave, the dimensions of which were described, of the ordinary simple kind, wasto be dug, between two vaults belonging to the family of St. Amand. Thefuneral, it was stated, would arrive at half--past one o'clock A. M. (thenext night but one); and he handed me the money, with extra fees, for aburial by night. It was a good deal; and I asked him, as he entrustedthe whole affair to me, in whose name I should take the receipt. 

"Not in mine, my good friend. They wanted me to become an executor, which I, yesterday, wrote to decline; and I am informed that if thereceipt were in my name it would constitute me an executor in the eye ofthe law, and fix me in that position. Take it, pray, if you have noobjection, in your own name. "

This, accordingly, I did. 

You will see, by--and--by, why I am obliged to mention all theseparticulars. 

The Count, meanwhile, was leaning back in the carriage, with his blacksilk muffler up to his nose, and his hat shading his eyes, while hedozed in his corner; in which state I found him on my return. 

Paris had lost its charm for me. I hurried through the little business Ihad to do, longed once more for my quiet room in the Dragon Volant, themelancholy woods of the Château de la Carque, and the tumultuous andthrilling influence of proximity to the object of my wild but wickedromance. 

I was delayed some time by my stockbroker. I had a very large sum, as Itold you, at my banker's, uninvested. I cared very little for a fewday's interest--very little for the entire sum, compared with the imagethat occupied my thoughts, and beckoned me with a white arm, through thedark, toward the spreading lime trees and chestnuts of the Château de laCarque. But I had fixed this day to meet him, and was relieved when hetold me that I had better let it lie in my banker's hands for a few dayslonger, as the funds would certainly fall immediately. This accident, too, was not without its immediate bearing on my subsequent adventures. 

When I reached the Dragon Volant, I found, in my sitting-room, a gooddeal to my chagrin, my two guests, whom I had quite forgotten. Iinwardly cursed my own stupidity for having embarrassed myself withtheir agreeable society. It could not be helped now, however, and a wordto the waiters put all things in train for dinner. 

Tom Whistlewick was in great force; and he commenced almost immediatelywith a very odd story. 

He told me that not only Versailles, but all Paris was in a ferment, inconsequence of a revolting, and all but sacrilegious practical joke, played of on the night before. 

The pagoda, as he persisted in calling the palanquin, had been leftstanding on the spot where we last saw it. Neither conjuror, nor usher, nor bearers had ever returned. When the ball closed, and the company atlength retired, the servants who attended to put out the lights, andsecure the doors, found it still there. 

It was determined, however, to let it stand where it was until nextmorning, by which time, it was conjectured, its owners would sendmessengers to remove it. 

None arrived. The servants were then ordered to take it away; and itsextraordinary weight, for the first time, reminded them of its forgottenhuman occupant. Its door was forced; and, judge what was their disgust, when they discovered, not a living man, but a corpse! Three or four daysmust have passed since the death of the burly man in the Chinese tunicand painted cap. Some people thought it was a trick designed to insultthe Allies, in whose honor the ball was got up. Others were of opinionthat it was nothing worse than a daring and cynical jocularity which, shocking as it was, might yet be forgiven to the high spirits andirrepressible buffoonery of youth. Others, again, fewer in number, andmystically given, insisted that the corpse was _bona fide_necessary to the exhibition, and that the disclosures and allusionswhich had astonished so many people were distinctly due to necromancy. 

"The matter, however, is now in the hands of the police, " observedMonsieur Carmaignac, "and we are not the body they were two or threemonths ago, if the offenders against propriety and public feeling arenot traced and convicted, unless, indeed, they have been a great dealmore cunning than such fools generally are. "

I was thinking within myself how utterly inexplicable was my colloquywith the conjuror, so cavalierly dismissed by Monsieur Carmaignac as a"fool"; and the more I thought the more marvelous it seemed. 

"It certainly was an original joke, though not a very clear one, " saidWhistlewick. 

"Not even original, " said Carmaignac. "Very nearly the same thing wasdone, a hundred years ago or more, at a state ball in Paris; and therascals who played the trick were never found out. "

In this Monsieur Carmaignac, as I afterwards discovered, spoke truly;for, among my books of French anecdote and memoirs, the very incident ismarked by my own hand. 

While we were thus talking the waiter told us that dinner was served, and we withdrew accordingly; my guests more than making amends for mycomparative taciturnity. 

Chapter XVIII

THE CHURCHYARD

Our dinner was really good, so were the wines; better, perhaps, at thisout-of-the-way inn, than at some of the more pretentious hotels inParis. The moral effect of a really good dinner is immense--we all feltit. The serenity and good nature that follow are more solid andcomfortable than the tumultuous benevolences of Bacchus. 

My friends were happy, therefore, and very chatty; which latter relievedme of the trouble of talking, and prompted them to entertain me and oneanother incessantly with agreeable stories and conversation, of which, until suddenly a subject emerged which interested me powerfully, Iconfess, so much were my thoughts engaged elsewhere, I heard next tonothing. 

"Yes, " said Carmaignac, continuing a conversation which had escaped me, "there was another case, beside that Russian nobleman, odder still. Iremembered it this morning, but cannot recall the name. He was a tenantof the very same room. By-the-by, Monsieur, might it not be as well, " headded, turning to me with a laugh, half joke whole earnest, as they say, "if you were to get into another apartment, now that the house is nolonger crowded? that is, if you mean to make any stay here. "

"A thousand thanks! no. I'm thinking of changing my hotel; and I can runinto town so easily at night; and though I stay here for this night atleast, I don't expect to vanish like those others. But you say there isanother adventure, of the same kind, connected with the same room. Dolet us hear it. But take some wine first. "

The story he told was curious. 

"It happened, " said Carmaignac, "as well as I recollect, before eitherof the other cases. A French gentleman--I wish I could remember hisname--the son of a merchant, came to this inn (the Dragon Volant), and was put by the landlord into the same room of which we have beenspeaking. _Your_ apartment, Monsieur. He was by no means young--pastforty--and very far from good-looking. The people here said that he wasthe ugliest man, and the most good-natured, that ever lived. He playedon the fiddle, sang, and wrote poetry. His habits were odd and desultory. He would sometimes sit all day in his room writing, singing, andfiddling, and go out at night for a walk. An eccentric man! He wasby no means a millionaire, but he had a _modicum bonum_, youunderstand--a trifle more than half a million of francs. He consultedhis stockbroker about investing this money in foreign stocks, and drewthe entire sum from his banker. You now have the situation of affairswhen the catastrophe occurred. "

"Pray fill your glass, " I said. 

"Dutch courage, Monsieur, to face the catastrophe!" said Whistlewick, filling his own. 

"Now, that was the last that ever was heard of his money, " resumedCarmaignac. "You shall hear about himself. The night after thisfinancial operation he was seized with a poetic frenzy: he sent for thethen landlord of this house, and told him that he long meditated anepic, and meant to commence that night, and that he was on no account tobe disturbed until nine o'clock in the morning. He had two pairs of waxcandles, a little cold supper on a side-table, his desk open, paperenough upon it to contain the entire Henriade, and a proportionate storeof pens and ink. 

"Seated at this desk he was seen by the waiter who brought him a cup ofcoffee at nine o'clock, at which time the intruder said he was writingfast enough to set fire to the paper--that was his phrase; he did notlook up, he appeared too much engrossed. But when the waiter came back, half an hour afterwards, the door was locked; and the poet, from within, answered that he must not be disturbed. 

"Away went the _garçon_, and next morning at nine o'clock knockedat his door and, receiving no answer, looked through the key-hole; thelights were still burning, the window-shutters were closed as he hadleft them; he renewed his knocking, knocked louder, no answer came. Hereported this continued and alarming silence to the innkeeper, who, finding that his guest had not left his key in the lock, succeeded infinding another that opened it. The candles were just giving up theghost in their sockets, but there was light enough to ascertain that thetenant of the room was gone! The bed had not been disturbed; thewindow-shutter was barred. He must have let himself out, and, lockingthe door on the outside, put the key in his pocket, and so made his wayout of the house. Here, however, was another difficulty: the DragonVolant shut its doors and made all fast at twelve o'clock; after thathour no one could leave the house, except by obtaining the key andletting himself out, and of necessity leaving the door unsecured, orelse by collusion and aid of some person in the house. 

"Now it happened that, some time after the doors were secured, athalf-past twelve, a servant who had not been apprised of his order to beleft undisturbed, seeing a light shine through the key-hole, knocked atthe door to inquire whether the poet wanted anything. He was very littleobliged to his disturber, and dismissed him with a renewed charge thathe was not to be interrupted again during the night. This incidentestablished the fact that he was in the house after the doors had beenlocked and barred. The inn-keeper himself kept the keys, and swore thathe found them hung on the wall above his head, in his bed, in theirusual place, in the morning; and that nobody could have taken them awaywithout awakening him. That was all we could discover. The Count de St. Alyre, to whom this house belongs, was very active and very muchchagrined. But nothing was discovered. "

"And nothing heard since of the epic poet?" I asked. 

"Nothing--not the slightest clue--he never turned up again. I suppose heis dead; if he is not, he must have got into some devilish bad scrape, of which we have heard nothing, that compelled him to abscond with allthe secrecy and expedition in his power. All that we know for certain isthat, having occupied the room in which you sleep, he vanished, nobodyever knew how, and never was heard of since. "

"You have now mentioned three cases, " I said, "and all from the sameroom. "

"Three. Yes, all equally unintelligible. When men are murdered, thegreat and immediate difficulty the assassins encounter is how to concealthe body. It is very hard to believe that three persons should have beenconsecutively murdered in the same room, and their bodies so effectuallydisposed of that no trace of them was ever discovered. "

From this we passed to other topics, and the grave Monsieur Carmaignacamused us with a perfectly prodigious collection of scandalous anecdote, which his opportunities in the police department had enabled him toaccumulate. 

My guests happily had engagements in Paris, and left me about ten. 

I went up to my room, and looked out upon the grounds of the Château dela Carque. The moonlight was broken by clouds, and the view of the parkin this desultory light acquired a melancholy and fantastic character. 

The strange anecdotes recounted of the room in which I stood by MonsieurCarmaignac returned vaguely upon my mind, drowning in sudden shadows thegaiety of the more frivolous stories with which he had followed them. Ilooked round me on the room that lay in ominous gloom, with an almostdisagreeable sensation. I took my pistols now with an undefinedapprehension that they might be really needed before my return tonight. This feeling, be it understood, in no wise chilled my ardor. Never hadmy enthusiasm mounted higher. My adventure absorbed and carried me away;but it added a strange and stern excitement to the expedition. 

I loitered for a time in my room. I had ascertained the exact point atwhich the little churchyard lay. It was about a mile away. I did notwish to reach it earlier than necessary. 

I stole quietly out and sauntered along the road to my left, and thenceentered a narrower track, still to my left, which, skirting the parkwall and describing a circuitous route all the way, under grand oldtrees, passes the ancient cemetery. That cemetery is embowered in treesand occupies little more than half an acre of ground to the left of theroad, interposing between it and the park of the Château de la Carque. 

Here, at this haunted spot, I paused and listened. The place was utterlysilent. A thick cloud had darkened the moon, so that I could distinguishlittle more than the outlines of near objects, and that vaguely enough;and sometimes, as it were, floating in black fog, the white surface of atombstone emerged. 

Among the forms that met my eye against the iron-grey of the horizon, were some of those shrubs or trees that grow like our junipers, some sixfeet high, in form like a miniature poplar, with the darker foliage ofthe yew. I do not know the name of the plant, but I have often seen itin such funereal places. 

Knowing that I was a little too early, I sat down upon the edge of atombstone to wait, as, for aught I knew, the beautiful Countess mighthave wise reasons for not caring that I should enter the grounds of thechâteau earlier than she had appointed. In the listless state induced bywaiting, I sat there, with my eyes on the object straight before me, which chanced to be that faint black outline I have described. It wasright before me, about half-a-dozen steps away. 

The moon now began to escape from under the skirt of the cloud that hadhid her face for so long; and, as the light gradually improved, the treeon which I had been lazily staring began to take a new shape. It was nolonger a tree, but a man standing motionless. Brighter and brighter grewthe moonlight, clearer and clearer the image became, and at last stoodout perfectly distinctly. It was Colonel Gaillarde. Luckily, he was notlooking toward me. I could only see him in profile; but there was nomistaking the white moustache, the _farouche_ visage, and the gauntsix-foot stature. There he was, his shoulder toward me, listening andwatching, plainly, for some signal or person expected, straight in frontof him. 

If he were, by chance, to turn his eyes in my direction, I knew that Imust reckon upon an instantaneous renewal of the combat only commencedin the hall of Belle Étoile. In any case, could malignant fortune haveposted, at this place and hour, a more dangerous watcher? What ecstasyto him, by a single discovery, to hit me so hard, and blast the Countessde St. Alyre, whom he seemed to hate. 

He raised his arm; he whistled softly; I heard an answering whistle aslow; and, to my relief, the Colonel advanced in the direction of thissound, widening the distance between us at every step; and immediately Iheard talking, but in a low and cautious key. I recognized, I thought, even so, the peculiar voice of Gaillarde. I stole softly forward in thedirection in which those sounds were audible. In doing so, I had, ofcourse, to use the extremest caution. 

I thought I saw a hat above a jagged piece of ruined wall, and then asecond--yes, I saw two hats conversing; the voices came from under them. They moved off, not in the direction of the park, but of the road, and Ilay along the grass, peeping over a grave, as a skirmisher mightobserving the enemy. One after the other, the figures emerged full intoview as they mounted the stile at the roadside. The Colonel, who waslast, stood on the wall for awhile, looking about him, and then jumpeddown on the road. I heard their steps and talk as they moved awaytogether, with their backs toward me, in the direction which led themfarther and farther from the Dragon Volant. 

I waited until these sounds were quite lost in distance before I enteredthe park. I followed the instructions I had received from the Countessde St. Alyre, and made my way among brushwood and thickets to the pointnearest the ruinous temple, and crossed the short intervening space ofopen ground rapidly. 

I was now once more under the gigantic boughs of the old lime andchestnut trees; softly, and with a heart throbbing fast, I approachedthe little structure. 

The moon was now shining steadily, pouring down its radiance on the softfoliage, and here and there mottling the verdure under my feet. 

I reached the steps; I was among its worn marble shafts. She was notthere, nor in the inner sanctuary, the arched windows of which werescreened almost entirely by masses of ivy. The lady had not yet arrived. 

Chapter XIX

THE KEY

I stood now upon the steps, watching and listening. In a minute or two Iheard the crackle of withered sticks trod upon, and, looking in thedirection, I saw a figure approaching among the trees, wrapped in amantle. 

I advanced eagerly. It was the Countess. She did not speak, but gave meher hand, and I led her to the scene of our last interview. Sherepressed the ardor of my impassioned greeting with a gentle butperemptory firmness. She removed her hood, shook back her beautifulhair, and, gazing on me with sad and glowing eyes, sighed deeply. Someawful thought seemed to weigh upon her, "Richard, I must speak plainly. The crisis of my life has come. I amsure you would defend me. I think you pity me; perhaps you even loveme. "

At these words I became eloquent, as young madmen in my plight do. Shesilenced me, however, with the same melancholy firmness. 

"Listen, dear friend, and then say whether you can aid me. How madly Iam trusting you; and yet my heart tells me how wisely! To meet you hereas I do--what insanity it seems! How poorly you must think of me! Butwhen you know all, you will judge me fairly. Without your aid I cannotaccomplish my purpose. That purpose unaccomplished, I must die. I amchained to a man whom I despise--whom I abhor. I have resolved to fly. Ihave jewels, principally diamonds, for which I am offered thirtythousand pounds of your English money. They are my separate property bymy marriage settlement; I will take them with me. You are a judge, nodoubt, of jewels. I was counting mine when the hour came, and broughtthis in my hand to show you. Look. "

"It is magnificent!" I exclaimed, as a collar of diamonds twinkled andflashed in the moonlight, suspended from her pretty fingers. I thought, even at that tragic moment, that she prolonged the show, with a femininedelight in these brilliant toys. 

"Yes, " she said, "I shall part with them all. I will turn them intomoney and break, forever, the unnatural and wicked bonds that tied me, in the name of a sacrament, to a tyrant. A man young, handsome, generous, brave, as you, can hardly be rich. Richard, you say you loveme; you shall share all this with me. We will fly together toSwitzerland; we will evade pursuit; in powerful friends will interveneand arrange a separation, and shall, at length, be happy and reward myhero. "

You may suppose the style, florid and vehement, in which poured forth mygratitude, vowed the devotion of my life, and placed myself absolutelyat her disposal. 

"Tomorrow night, " she said, "my husband will attend the remains of hiscousin, Monsieur de St. Amand, to Père la Chaise. The hearse, he says, will leave this at half-past nine. You must be here, where we stand, atnine o'clock. "

I promised punctual obedience. 

"I will not meet you here; but you see a red light in the window of thetower at that angle of the château?"

I assented. 

"I placed it there, that, tomorrow night, when it comes, you mayrecognize it. So soon as that rose-colored light appears at that window, it will be a signal to you that the funeral has left the château, andthat you may approach safely. Come, then, to that window; I will open itand admit you. Five minutes after a carriage-carriage, with four horses, shall stand ready in the _porte-cochère_. I will place my diamondsin your hands; and so soon as we enter the carriage our flightcommences. We shall have at least five hours' start; and with energy, stratagem, and resource, I fear nothing. Are you ready to undertake allthis for my sake?"

Again I vowed myself her slave. 

"My only difficulty, " she said, "is how we shall quickly enough convertmy diamonds into money; I dare not remove them while my husband is inthe house. "

Here was the opportunity I wished for. I now told her that I had in mybanker's hands no less a sum than thirty thousand pounds, with which, inthe shape of gold and notes, I should come furnished, and thus the riskand loss of disposing of her diamonds in too much haste would beavoided. 

"Good Heaven!" she exclaimed, with a kind of disappointment. "You arerich, then? and I have lost the felicity of making my generous friendmore happy. Be it so! since so it must be. Let us contribute, each, inequal shares, to our common fund. Bring you, your money; I, my jewels. There is a happiness to me even in mingling my resources with yours. "

On this there followed a romantic colloquy, all poetry and passion, suchas I should in vain endeavor to reproduce. Then came a very specialinstruction. 

"I have come provided, too, with a key, the use of which I mustexplain. "

It was a double key--a long, slender stem, with a key at each end--oneabout the size which opens an ordinary room door; the other as small, almost, as the key of a dressing-case. 

"You cannot employ too much caution tomorrow night. An interruptionwould murder all my hopes. I have learned that you occupy the hauntedroom in the Dragon Volant. It is the very room I would have wished youin. I will tell you why--there is a story of a man who, having shuthimself up in that room one night, disappeared before morning. The truthis, he wanted, I believe, to escape from creditors; and the host of theDragon Volant at that time, being a rogue, aided him in absconding. Myhusband investigated the matter, and discovered how his escape was made. It was by means of this key. Here is a memorandum and a plan describinghow they are to be applied. I have taken them from the Count'sescritoire. And now, once more I must leave to your ingenuity how tomystify the people at the Dragon Volant. Be sure you try the keys first, to see that the locks turn freely. I will have my jewels ready. You, whatever we divide, had better bring your money, because it may be manymonths before you can revisit Paris, or disclose our place of residenceto anyone: and our passports--arrange all that; in what names, andwhither, you please. And now, dear Richard" (she leaned her arm fondlyon my shoulder, and looked with ineffable passion in my eyes, with herother hand clasped in mine), "my very life is in your hands; I havestaked all on your fidelity. "

As she spoke the last word, she, on a sudden, grew deadly pale, andgasped, "Good God! who is here?"

At the same moment she receded through the door in the marble screen, close to which she stood, and behind which was a small roofless chamber, as small as the shrine, the window of which was darkened by a clusteringmass of ivy so dense that hardly a gleam of light came through theleaves. 

I stood upon the threshold which she had just crossed, looking in thedirection in which she had thrown that one terrified glance. No wondershe was frightened. Quite close upon us, not twenty yards away, andapproaching at a quick step, very distinctly lighted by the moon, Colonel Gaillarde and his companion were coming. The shadow of thecornice and a piece of wall were upon me. Unconscious of this, I wasexpecting the moment when, with one of his frantic yells, he shouldspring forward to assail me. 

I made a step backward, drew one of my pistols from my pocket, andcocked it. It was obvious he had not seen me. 

I stood, with my finger on the trigger, determined to shoot him dead ifhe should attempt to enter the place where the Countess was. It would, no doubt, have been a murder; but, in my mind, I had no question orqualm about it. When once we engage in secret and guilty practices weare nearer other and greater crimes than we at all suspect. 

"There's the statue, " said the Colonel, in his brief discordant tones. "That's the figure. "

"Alluded to in the stanzas?" inquired his companion. 

"The very thing. We shall see more next time. Forward, Monsieur; let usmarch. " And, much to my relief, the gallant Colonel turned on his heeland marched through the trees, with his back toward the château, striding over the grass, as I quickly saw, to the park wall, which theycrossed not far from the gables of the Dragon Volant. 

I found the Countess trembling in no affected, but a very real terror. She would not hear of my accompanying her toward the château. But I toldher that I would prevent the return of the mad Colonel; and upon thatpoint, at least, that she need fear nothing. She quickly recovered, again bade me a fond and lingering good-night, and left me, gazing afterher, with the key in my hand, and such a phantasmagoria floating in mybrain as amounted very nearly to madness. 

There was I, ready to brave all dangers, all right and reason, plungeinto murder itself, on the first summons, and entangle myself inconsequences inextricable and horrible (what cared I?) for a woman ofwhom I knew nothing, but that she was beautiful and reckless!

I have often thanked heaven for its mercy in conducting me through thelabyrinths in which I had all but lost myself. 

Chapter XX

A HIGH-CAULD-CAP

I was now upon the road, within two or three hundred yards of the DragonVolant. I had undertaken an adventure with a vengeance! And by way ofprelude, there not improbably awaited me, at my inn, another encounter, perhaps, this time, not so lucky, with the grotesque sabreur. 

I was glad I had my pistols. I certainly was bound by no law to allow aruffian to cut me down, unresisting. 

Stooping boughs from the old park, gigantic poplars on the other side, and the moonlight over all, made the narrow road to the inn-doorpicturesque. 

I could not think very clearly just now; events were succeeding oneanother so rapidly, and I, involved in the action of a drama soextravagant and guilty, hardly knew myself or believed my own story, asI slowly paced towards the still open door of the Flying Dragon. No signof the Colonel, visible or audible, was there. In the hall I inquired. No gentleman had arrived at the inn for the last half hour. I lookedinto the public room. It was deserted. The clock struck twelve, and Iheard the servant barring the great door. I took my candle. The lightsin this rural hostelry were by this time out, and the house had the airof one that had settled to slumber for many hours. The cold moonlightstreamed in at the window on the landing as I ascended the broadstaircase; and I paused for a moment to look over the wooded grounds tothe turreted château, to me, so full of interest. I bethought me, however, that prying eyes might read a meaning in this midnight gazing, and possibly the Count himself might, in his jealous mood, surmise asignal in this unwonted light in the stair-window of the Dragon Volant. 

On opening my room door, with a little start, I met an extremely oldwoman with the longest face I ever saw; she had what used to be termed ahigh-cauld-cap on, the white border of which contrasted with her brownand yellow skin, and made her wrinkled face more ugly. She raised hercurved shoulders, and looked up in my face, with eyes unnaturally blackand bright. 

"I have lighted a little wood, Monsieur, because the night is chill. "

I thanked her, but she did not go. She stood with her candle in hertremulous fingers. 

"Excuse an old woman, Monsieur, " she said; "but what on earth can ayoung English _milord_, with all Paris at his feet, find to amusehim in the Dragon Volant?"

Had I been at the age of fairy tales, and in daily intercourse with thedelightful Countess d'Aulnois, I should have seen in this witheredapparition, the _genius loci_, the malignant fairy, at the stamp ofwhose foot the ill-fated tenants of this very room had, from time totime, vanished. I was past that, however; but the old woman's dark eyeswere fixed on mine with a steady meaning that plainly told me that mysecret was known. I was embarrassed and alarmed; I never thought ofasking her what business that was of hers. 

"These old eyes saw you in the park of the château tonight. "

"_I_!" I began, with all the scornful surprise I could affect. 

"It avails nothing, Monsieur; I know why you stay here; and I tell youto begone. Leave this house tomorrow morning, and never come again. "

She lifted her disengaged hand, as she looked at me with intense horrorin her eyes. 

"There is nothing on earth--I don't know what you mean, " I answered, "and why should you care about me?"

"I don't care about you, Monsieur--I care about the honor of an ancientfamily, whom I served in their happier days, when to be noble was to behonored. But my words are thrown away, Monsieur; you are insolent. Iwill keep my secret, and you, yours; that is all. You will soon find ithard enough to divulge it. "

The old woman went slowly from the room and shut the door, before I hadmade up my mind to say anything. I was standing where she had left me, nearly five minutes later. The jealousy of Monsieur the Count, Iassumed, appears to this old creature about the most terrible thing increation. Whatever contempt I might entertain for the dangers which thisold lady so darkly intimated, it was by no means pleasant, you maysuppose, that a secret so dangerous should be so much as suspected by astranger, and that stranger a partisan of the Count de St. Alyre. 

Ought I not, at all risks, to apprise the Countess, who had trusted meso generously, or, as she said herself, so madly, of the fact that oursecret was, at least, suspected by another? But was there not greaterdanger in attempting to communicate? What did the beldame mean bysaying, "Keep your secret, and I'll keep mine?"

I had a thousand distracting questions before me. My progress seemedlike a journey through the Spessart, where at every step some new goblinor monster starts from the ground or steps from behind a tree. 

Peremptorily I dismissed these harassing and frightful doubts. I securedmy door, sat myself down at my table and, with a candle at each side, placed before me the piece of vellum which contained the drawings andnotes on which I was to rely for full instructions as to how to use thekey. 

When I had studied this for awhile I made my investigation. The angle ofthe room at the right side of the window was cut off by an oblique turnin the wainscot. I examined this carefully, and, on pressure, a smallbit of the frame of the woodwork slid aside, and disclosed a key-hole. On removing my finger, it shot back to its place again, with a spring. So far I had interpreted my instructions successfully. A similar search, next the door, and directly under this, was rewarded by a likediscovery. The small end of the key fitted this, as it had the upperkey-hole; and now, with two or three hard jerks at the key, a door inthe panel opened, showing a strip of the bare wall and a narrow, archeddoorway, piercing the thickness of the wall; and within which I saw ascrew staircase of stone. 

Candle in hand I stepped in. I do not know whether the quality of air, long undisturbed, is peculiar; to me it has always seemed so, and thedamp smell of the old masonry hung in this atmosphere. My candle faintlylighted the bare stone wall that enclosed the stair, the foot of which Icould not see. Down I went, and a few turns brought me to the stonefloor. Here was another door, of the simple, old, oak kind, deep sunk inthe thickness of the wall. The large end of the key fitted this. Thelock was stiff; I set the candle down upon the stair, and applied bothhands; it turned with difficulty and, as it revolved, uttered a shriekthat alarmed me for my secret. 

For some minutes I did not move. In a little time, however, I tookcourage, and opened the door. The night-air floating in puffed out thecandle. There was a thicket of holly and underwood, as dense as ajungle, close about the door. I should have been in pitch-darkness, wereit not that through the topmost leaves there twinkled, here and there, aglimmer of moonshine. 

Softly, lest anyone should have opened his window at the sound of therusty bolt, I struggled through this till I gained a view of the opengrounds. Here I found that the brushwood spread a good way up the park, uniting with the wood that approached the little temple I havedescribed. 

A general could not have chosen a more effectually-covered approach fromthe Dragon Volant to the trysting-place where hitherto I had conferredwith the idol of my lawless adoration. 

Looking back upon the old inn I discovered that the stair I descendedwas enclosed in one of those slender turrets that decorate suchbuildings. It was placed at that angle which corresponded with the partof the paneling of my room indicated in the plan I had been studying. 

Thoroughly satisfied with my experiment I made my way back to the doorwith some little difficulty, remounted to my room, locked my secret dooragain; kissed the mysterious key that her hand had pressed that night, and placed it under my pillow, upon which, very soon after, my giddyhead was laid, not, for some time, to sleep soundly. 

Chapter XXI

I SEE THREE MEN IN A MIRROR

I awoke very early next morning, and was too excited to sleep again. Assoon as I could, without exciting remark, I saw my host. I told him thatI was going into town that night, and thence to ----, where I had to seesome people on business, and requested him to mention my being there toany friend who might call. That I expected to be back in about a week, and that in the meantime my servant, St. Clair, would keep the key of myroom and look after my things. 

Having prepared this mystification for my landlord, I drove into Paris, and there transacted the financial part of the affair. The problem wasto reduce my balance, nearly thirty thousand pounds, to a shape in whichit would be not only easily portable, but available, wherever I mightgo, without involving correspondence, or any other incident which woulddisclose my place of residence for the time being. All these points wereas nearly provided for as, they could be. I need not trouble you aboutmy arrangements for passports. It is enough to say that the point Iselected for our flight was, in the spirit of romance, one of the mostbeautiful and sequestered nooks in Switzerland. 

Luggage, I should start with none. The first considerable town wereached next morning, would supply an extemporized wardrobe. It was nowtwo o'clock; _only_ two! How on earth was I to dispose of theremainder of the day?

I had not yet seen the cathedral of Notre Dame, and thither I drove. Ispent an hour or more there; and then to the Conciergerie, the Palais deJustice, and the beautiful Sainte Chapelle. Still there remained sometime to get rid of, and I strolled into the narrow streets adjoining thecathedral. I recollect seeing, in one of them, an old house with a muralinscription stating that it had been the residence of Canon Fulbert, theuncle of Abelard's Eloise. I don't know whether these curious oldstreets, in which I observed fragments of ancient Gothic churches fittedup as warehouses, are still extant. I lighted, among other dingy andeccentric shops, upon one that seemed that of a broker of all sorts ofold decorations, armor, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it wasdark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a piece of inlaidarmor, and allowed me to poke about his shop, and examine the curiousthings accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradually I made my way tothe farther end of it, where there was but one window with many panes, each with a bull's eye in it, and in the dirtiest Possible state. When Ireached this window, I turned about, and in a recess, standing at rightangles with the side wall of the shop, was a large mirror in anold-fashioned dingy frame. Reflected in this I saw what in old houses Ihave heard termed an "alcove, " in which, among lumber and various dustyarticles hanging on the wall, there stood a table, at which threepersons were seated, as it seemed to me, in earnest conversation. Two ofthese persons I instantly recognized; one was Colonel Gaillarde, theother was the Marquis d'Harmonville. The third, who was fiddling with apen, was a lean, pale man, pitted with the small-pox, with lank blackhair, and about as mean-looking a person as I had ever seen in my life. The Marquis looked up, and his glance was instantaneously followed byhis two companions. For a moment I hesitated what to do. But it wasplain that I was not recognized, as indeed I could hardly have been, thelight from the window being behind me, and the portion of the shopimmediately before me being very dark indeed. 

Perceiving this, I had presence of mind to affect being entirelyengrossed by the objects before me, and strolled slowly down the shopagain. I paused for a moment to hear whether I was followed, and wasrelieved when I heard no step. You may be sure I did not waste more timein that shop, where I had just made a discovery so curious and sounexpected. 

It was no business of mine to inquire what brought Colonel Gaillarde andthe Marquis together, in so shabby and even dirty a place, or who themean person, biting the feather end of his pen, might be. Suchemployments as the Marquis had accepted sometimes make strangebed-fellows. 

I was glad to get away, and just as the sun set I had reached the stepsof the Dragon Volant, and dismissed the vehicle in which I arrived, carrying in my hand a strong box, of marvelously small dimensionsconsidering all it contained, strapped in a leather cover whichdisguised its real character. 

When I got to my room I summoned St. Clair. I told him nearly the samestory I had already told my host. I gave him fifty pounds, with ordersto expend whatever was necessary on himself, and in payment for my roomstill my return. I then ate a slight and hasty dinner. My eyes were oftenupon the solemn old clock over the chimney-piece, which was my soleaccomplice in keeping tryst in this iniquitous venture. The sky favoredmy design, and darkened all things with a sea of clouds. 

The innkeeper met me in the hall, to ask whether I should want a vehicleto Paris? I was prepared for this question, and instantly answered thatI meant to walk to Versailles and take a carriage there. I called St. Clair. 

"Go, " said I, "and drink a bottle of wine with your friends. I shallcall you if I should want anything; in the meantime, here is the key tomy room; I shall be writing some notes, so don't allow anyone to disturbme for at least half an hour. At the end of that time you will probablyfind that I have left this for Versailles; and should you not find me inthe room, you may take that for granted; and you take charge ofeverything, and lock the door, you understand?"

St. Clair took his leave, wishing me all happiness, and no doubtpromising himself some little amusement with my money. With my candle inmy hand, I hastened upstairs. It wanted now but five minutes to theappointed time. I do not think there is anything of the coward in mynature; but I confess, as the crisis approached, I felt something of thesuspense and awe of a soldier going into action. Would I have receded?Not for all this earth could offer. 

I bolted my door, put on my greatcoat, and placed my pistols one in eachpocket. I now applied my key to the secret locks; drew the wainscot doora little open, took my strong box under my arm, extinguished my candle, unbolted my door, listened at it for a few moments to be sure that noone was approaching, and then crossed the floor of my room swiftly, entered the secret door, and closed the spring lock after me. I was uponthe screw-stair in total darkness, the key in my fingers. Thus far theundertaking was successful. 

Chapter XXII

RAPTURE

Down the screw-stair I went in utter darkness; and having reached thestone floor I discerned the door and groped out the key-hole. With morecaution, and less noise than upon the night before, I opened the doorand stepped out into the thick brushwood. It was almost as dark in thisjungle. 

Having secured the door I slowly pushed my way through the bushes, whichsoon became less dense. Then, with more case, but still under thickcover, I pursued in the track of the wood, keeping near its edge. 

At length, in the darkened air, about fifty yards away, the shafts ofthe marble temple rose like phantoms before me, seen through the trunksof the old trees. Everything favored my enterprise. I had effectuallymystified my servant and the people of the Dragon Volant, and so darkwas the night, that even had I alarmed the suspicions of all the tenantsof the inn, I might safely defy their united curiosity, though posted atevery window of the house. 

Through the trunks, over the roots of the old trees, I reached theappointed place of observation. I laid my treasure in its leathern casein the embrasure, and leaning my arms upon it, looked steadily in thedirection of the château. The outline of the building was scarcelydiscernible, blending dimly, as it did, with the sky. No light in anywindow was visible. I was plainly to wait; but for how long?

Leaning on my box of treasure, gazing toward the massive shadow thatrepresented the château, in the midst of my ardent and elated longings, there came upon me an odd thought, which you will think might well havestruck me long before. It seemed on a sudden, as it came, that thedarkness deepened, and a chill stole into the air around me. 

Suppose I were to disappear finally, like those other men whose storiesI had listened to! Had I not been at all the pains that mortal could toobliterate every trace of my real proceedings, and to mislead everyoneto whom I spoke as to the direction in which I had gone?

This icy, snake-like thought stole through my mind, and was gone. 

It was with me the full-blooded season of youth, conscious strength, rashness, passion, pursuit, the adventure! Here were a pair ofdouble-barreled pistols, four lives in my hands? What could possiblyhappen? The Count--except for the sake of my dulcinea, what was it to mewhether the old coward whom I had seen, in an ague of terror before thebrawling Colonel, interposed or not? I was assuming the worst that couldhappen. But with an ally so clever and courageous as my beautifulCountess, could any such misadventure befall? Bah! I laughed at all suchfancies. 

As I thus communed with myself, the signal light sprang up. Therose-colored light, _couleur de rose_, emblem of sanguine hope andthe dawn of a happy day. 

Clear, soft, and steady, glowed the light from the window. The stoneshafts showed black against it. Murmuring words of passionate love as Igazed upon the signal, I grasped my strong box under my arm, and withrapid strides approached the Château de la Carque. No sign of light orlife, no human voice, no tread of foot, no bark of dog indicated achance of interruption. A blind was down; and as I came close to thetall window, I found that half-a-dozen steps led up to it, and that alarge lattice, answering for a door, lay open. 

A shadow from within fell upon the blind; it was drawn aside, and as Iascended the steps, a soft voice murmured--"Richard, dearest Richard, come, oh! come! how I have longed for this moment!"

Never did she look so beautiful. My love rose to passionate enthusiasm. I only wished there were some real danger in the adventure worthy ofsuch a creature. When the first tumultuous greeting was over, she mademe sit beside her on a sofa. There we talked for a minute or two. Shetold me that the Count had gone, and was by that time more than a mileon his way, with the funeral, to Père la Chaise. Here were her diamonds. She exhibited, hastily, an open casket containing a profusion of thelargest brilliants. 

"What is this?" she asked. 

"A box containing money to the amount of thirty thousand pounds, " Ianswered. 

"What! all that money?" she exclaimed. 

"Every _sou_. "

"Was it not unnecessary to bring so much, seeing all these?" she said, touching her diamonds. "It would have been kind of you to allow me toprovide for both, for a time at least. It would have made me happiereven than I am. "

"Dearest, generous angel!" Such was my extravagant declamation. "Youforget that it may be necessary, for a long time, to observe silence asto where we are, and impossible to communicate safely with anyone. "

"You have then here this great sum--are you certain; have you countedit?"

"Yes, certainly; I received it today, " I answered, perhaps showing alittle surprise in my face. "I counted it, of course, on drawing it frommy bankers. "

"It makes me feel a little nervous, traveling with so much money; butthese jewels make as great a danger; that can add but little to it. Place them side by side; you shall take off your greatcoat when we areready to go, and with it manage to conceal these boxes. I should notlike the drivers to suspect that we were conveying such a treasure. Imust ask you now to close the curtains of that window, and bar theshutters. "

I had hardly done this when a knock was heard at the room door. 

"I know who this is, " she said, in a whisper to me. 

I saw that she was not alarmed. She went softly to the door, and awhispered conversation for a minute followed. 

"My trusty maid, who is coming with us. She says we cannot safely gosooner than ten minutes. She is bringing some coffee to the next room. "

She opened the door and looked in. 

"I must tell her not to take too much luggage. She is so odd! Don'tfollow--stay where you are--it is better that she should not see you. "

She left the room with a gesture of caution. 

A change had come over the manner of this beautiful woman. For the lastfew minutes a shadow had been stealing over her, an air of abstraction, a look bordering on suspicion. Why was she pale? Why had there come thatdark look in her eyes? Why had her very voice become changed? Hadanything gone suddenly wrong? Did some danger threaten?

This doubt, however, speedily quieted itself. If there had been anythingof the kind, she would, of course, have told me. It was only naturalthat, as the crisis approached, she should become more and more nervous. She did not return quite so soon as I had expected. To a man in mysituation absolute quietude is next to impossible. I moved restlesslyabout the room. It was a small one. There was a door at the other end. Iopened it, rashly enough. I listened, it was perfectly silent. I was inan excited, eager state, and every faculty engrossed about what wascoming, and in so far detached from the immediate present. I can'taccount, in any other way, for my having done so many foolish thingsthat night, for I was, naturally, by no means deficient in cunning. About the most stupid of those was, that instead of immediately closingthat door, which I never ought to have opened, I actually took a candleand walked into the room. 

There I made, quite unexpectedly, a rather startling discovery. 

Chapter XXIII

A CUP OF COFFEE

The room was carpetless. On the floor were a quantity of shavings, andsome score of bricks. Beyond these, on a narrow table, lay an objectwhich I could hardly believe I saw aright. 

I approached and drew from it a sheet which had very slightly disguisedits shape. There was no mistake about it. It was a coffin; and on thelid was a plate, with the inscription in French:

 PIERRE DE LA ROCHE ST. AMAND. ÂGÉ DE XXIII ANS. 

I drew back with a double shock. So, then, the funeral after all had notyet left! Here lay the body. I had been deceived. This, no doubt, accounted for the embarrassment so manifest in the Countess's manner. She would have done more wisely had she told me the true state of thecase. 

I drew back from this melancholy room, and closed the door. Her distrustof me was the worst rashness she could have committed. There is nothingmore dangerous than misapplied caution. In entire ignorance of the factI had entered the room, and there I might have lighted upon some of thevery persons it was our special anxiety that I should avoid. 

These reflections were interrupted, almost as soon as began, by thereturn of the Countess de St. Alyre. I saw at a glance that she detectedin my face some evidence of what had happened, for she threw a hastylook towards the door. 

"Have you seen anything--anything to disturb you, dear Richard? Have youbeen out of this room?"

I answered promptly, "Yes, " and told her frankly what had happened. 

"Well, I did not like to make you more uneasy than necessary. Besides, it is disgusting and horrible. The body is there; but the Count haddeparted a quarter of an hour before I lighted the colored lamp, andprepared to receive you. The body did not arrive till eight or tenminutes after he had set out. He was afraid lest the people at Père laChaise should suppose that the funeral was postponed. He knew that theremains of poor Pierre would certainly reach this tonight, although anunexpected delay has occurred; and there are reasons why he wishes thefuneral completed before tomorrow. The hearse with the body must leavethis in ten minutes. So soon as it is gone, we shall be free to set outupon our wild and happy journey. The horses are to the carriage in the_porte-cochère_. As for this _funeste_ horror" (she shudderedvery prettily), "let us think of it no more. "

She bolted the door of communication, and when she turned it was withsuch a pretty penitence in her face and attitude, that I was ready tothrow myself at her feet. 

"It is the last time, " she said, in a sweet sad little pleading, "Ishall ever practice a deception on my brave and beautiful Richard--myhero! Am I forgiven?"

Here was another scene of passionate effusion, and lovers' raptures anddeclamations, but only murmured lest the ears of listeners should bebusy. 

At length, on a sudden, she raised her hand, as if to prevent mystirring, her eyes fixed on me and her ear toward the door of the roomin which the coffin was placed, and remained breathless in that attitudefor a few moments. Then, with a little nod towards me, she moved ontip-toe to the door, and listened, extending her hand backward as if towarn me against advancing; and, after a little time, she returned, stillon tip-toe, and whispered to me, "They are removing the coffin--comewith me. "

I accompanied her into the room from which her maid, as she told me, hadspoken to her. Coffee and some old china cups, which appeared to mequite beautiful, stood on a silver tray; and some liqueur glasses, witha flask, which turned out to be noyau, on a salver beside it. 

"I shall attend you. I'm to be your servant here; I am to have my ownway; I shall not think myself forgiven by my darling if he refuses toindulge me in anything. "

She filled a cup with coffee and handed it to me with her left hand; herright arm she fondly passed over my shoulder, and with her fingersthrough my curls, caressingly, she whispered, "Take this, I shall takesome just now. "

It was excellent; and when I had done she handed me the liqueur, which Ialso drank. 

"Come back, dearest, to the next room, " she said. "By this time thoseterrible people must have gone away, and we shall be safer there, forthe present, than here. "

"You shall direct, and I obey; you shall command me, not only now, butalways, and in all things, my beautiful queen!" I murmured. 

My heroics were unconsciously, I daresay, founded upon my ideal of theFrench school of lovemaking. I am, even now, ashamed as I recall thebombast to which I treated the Countess de St. Alyre. 

"There, you shall have another miniature glass--a fairy glass--ofnoyau, " she said gaily. In this volatile creature, the funereal gloom ofthe moment before, and the suspense of an adventure on which all herfuture was staked, disappeared in a moment. She ran and returned withanother tiny glass, which, with an eloquent or tender little speech, Iplaced to my lips and sipped. 

I kissed her hand, I kissed her lips, I gazed in her beautiful eyes, andkissed her again unresisting. 

"You call me Richard, by what name am I to call my beautiful divinity?"I asked. 

"You call me Eugenie, it is my name. Let us be quite real; that is, ifyou love as entirely as I do. "

"Eugenie!" I exclaimed, and broke into a new rapture upon the name. 

It ended by my telling her how impatient I was to set out upon ourjourney; and, as I spoke, suddenly an odd sensation overcame me. It wasnot in the slightest degree like faintness. I can find no phrase todescribe it, but a sudden constraint of the brain; it was as if themembrane in which it lies, if there be such a thing, contracted, andbecame inflexible. 

"Dear Richard! what is the matter?" she exclaimed, with terror in herlooks. "Good Heavens! are you ill? I conjure you, sit down; sit in thischair. " She almost forced me into one; I was in no condition to offerthe least resistance. I recognized but too truly the sensations thatsupervened. I was lying back in the chair in which I sat, without thepower, by this time, of uttering a syllable, of closing my eyelids, ofmoving my eyes, of stirring a muscle. I had in a few seconds glided intoprecisely the state in which I had passed so many appalling hours whenapproaching Paris, in my night-drive with the Marquis d'Harmonville. 

Great and loud was the lady's agony. She seemed to have lost all senseof fear. She called me by my name, shook me by the shoulder, raised myarm and let it fall, all the time imploring of me, in distractingsentences, to make the slightest sign of life, and vowing that if I didnot, she would make away with herself. 

These ejaculations, after a minute or two, suddenly subsided. The ladywas perfectly silent and cool. In a very business-like way she took acandle and stood before me, pale indeed, very pale, but with anexpression only of intense scrutiny with a dash of horror in it. Shemoved the candle before my eyes slowly, evidently watching the effect. She then set it down, and rang a handball two or three times sharply. She placed the two cases (I mean hers containing the jewels and mystrong box) side by side on the table; and I saw her carefully lock thedoor that gave access to the room in which I had just now sipped mycoffee. 

Chapter XXIV

HOPE

She had scarcely set down my heavy box, which she seemed to haveconsiderable difficulty in raising on the table, when the door of theroom in which I had seen the coffin, opened, and a sinister andunexpected apparition entered. 

It was the Count de St. Alyre, who had been, as I have told you, reported to me to be, for some considerable time, on his way to Pèe laChaise. He stood before me for a moment, with the frame of the doorwayand a background of darkness enclosing him like a portrait. His slight, mean figure was draped in the deepest mourning. He had a pair of blackgloves in his hand, and his hat with crape round it. 

When he was not speaking his face showed signs of agitation; his mouthwas puckering and working. He looked damnably wicked and frightened. 

"Well, my dear Eugenie? Well, child--eh? Well, it all goes admirably?"

"Yes, " she answered, in a low, hard tone. "But you and Planard shouldnot have left that door open. "

This she said sternly. "He went in there and looked about wherever heliked; it was fortunate he did not move aside the lid of the coffin. "

"Planard should have seen to that, " said the Count, sharply. "_Mafoi!_ I can't be everywhere!" He advanced half-a-dozen short quicksteps into the room toward me, and placed his glasses to his eyes. 

"Monsieur Beckett, " he cried sharply, two or three times, "Hi! don't youknow me?"

He approached and peered more closely in my face; raised my hand andshook it, calling me again, then let it drop, and said: "It has set inadmirably, my pretty _mignonne_. When did it commence?"

The Countess came and stood beside him, and looked at me steadily forsome seconds. You can't conceive the effect of the silent gaze of thosetwo pairs of evil eyes. 

The lady glanced to where, I recollected, the mantel piece stood, andupon it a clock, the regular click of which I sharply heard. "Four--five--six minutes and a half, " she said slowly, in a cold hardway. 

"Brava! Bravissima! my beautiful queen! my little Venus! my Joan of Arc!my heroine! my paragon of women!"

He was gloating on me with an odious curiosity, smiling, as he gropedbackward with his thin brown fingers to find the lady's hand; but she, not (I dare say) caring for his caresses, drew back a little. 

"Come, _ma chère, _ let us count these things. What is it?Pocket-book? Or--or--_what?_"

"It is _that_!" said the lady, pointing with a look of disgust tothe box, which lay in its leather case on the table. 

"Oh! Let us see--let us count--let us see, " he said, as he wasunbuckling the straps with his tremulous fingers. "We must countthem--we must see to it. I have pencil and pocket-book--but--where's thekey? See this cursed lock! My--! What is it? Where's the key?"

He was standing before the Countess, shuffling his feet, with his handsextended and all his fingers quivering. 

"I have not got it; how could I? It is in his pocket, of course, " saidthe lady. 

In another instant the fingers of the old miscreant were in my pockets;he plucked out everything they contained, and some keys among the rest. 

I lay in precisely the state in which I had been during my drive withthe Marquis to Paris. This wretch, I knew, was about to rob me. Thewhole drama, and the Countess's _rôle_ in it, I could not yetcomprehend. I could not be sure--so much more presence of mind andhistrionic resource have women than fall to the lot of our clumsysex--whether the return of the Count was not, in truth, a surprise toher; and this scrutiny of the contents of my strong box, an extemporeundertaking of the Count's. But it was clearing more and more everymoment: and I was destined, very soon, to comprehend minutely myappalling situation. 

I had not the power of turning my eyes this way or that, the smallestfraction of a hair's breadth. But let anyone, placed as I was at the endof a room, ascertain for himself by experiment how wide is the field ofsight, without the slightest alteration in the line of vision, he willfind that it takes in the entire breadth of a large room, and that up toa very short distance before him; and imperfectly, by a refraction, Ibelieve, in the eye itself, to a point very near indeed. Next to nothingthat passed in the room, therefore, was hidden from me. 

The old man had, by this time, found the key. The leather case was open. The box cramped round with iron was next unlocked. He turned out itscontents upon the table. 

"Rouleaux of a hundred Napoleons each. One, two, three. Yes, quick. Write down a thousand Napoleons. One, two; yes, right. Another thousand, _write_!" And so on and on till the gold was rapidly counted. Thencame the notes. 

"Ten thousand francs. _Write_. Then thousand francs again. Is itwritten? Another ten thousand francs: is it down? Smaller notes wouldhave been better. They should have been smaller. These are horriblyembarrassing. Bolt that door again; Planard would become unreasonable ifhe knew the amount. Why did you not tell him to get it in smaller notes?No matter now--go on--it can't be helped--_write_--another tenthousand francs--another--another. " And so on, till my treasure wascounted out before my face, while I saw and heard all that passed withthe sharpest distinctness, and my mental perceptions were horriblyvivid. But in all other respects I was dead. 

He had replaced in the box every note and rouleau as he counted it, andnow, having ascertained the sum total, he locked it, replaced it verymethodically in its cover, opened a buffet in the wainscoting, and, having placed the Countess' jewel-case and my strong box in it, helocked it; and immediately on completing these arrangements he began tocomplain, with fresh acrimony and maledictions of Planard's delay. 

He unbolted the door, looked in the dark room beyond, and listened. Heclosed the door again and returned. The old man was in a fever ofsuspense. 

"I have kept ten thousand francs for Planard, " said the Count, touchinghis waistcoat pocket. 

"Will that satisfy him?" asked the lady. 

"Why--curse him!" screamed the Count. "Has he no conscience? I'll swearto him it's half the entire thing. "

He and the lady again came and looked at me anxiously for a while, insilence; and then the old Count began to grumble again about Planard, and to compare his watch with the clock. The lady seemed less impatient;she sat no longer looking at me, but across the room, so that herprofile was toward me--and strangely changed, dark and witch-like itlooked. My last hope died as I beheld that jaded face from which themask had dropped. I was certain that they intended to crown theirrobbery by murder. Why did they not dispatch me at once? What objectcould there be in postponing the catastrophe which would expedite theirown safety. I cannot recall, even to myself, adequately the horrorsunutterable that I underwent. You must suppose a real night-mare--I meana night-mare in which the objects and the danger are real, and the spellof corporal death appears to be protractible at the pleasure of thepersons who preside at your unearthly torments. I could have no doubt asto the cause of the state in which I was. 

In this agony, to which I could not give the slightest expression, I sawthe door of the room where the coffin had been, open slowly, and theMarquis d'Harmonville entered the room. 

Chapter XXV

DESPAIR

A moment's hope, hope violent and fluctuating, hope that was nearlytorture, and then came a dialogue, and with it the terrors of despair. 

"Thank Heaven, Planard, you have come at last, " said the Count, takinghim with both hands by the arm, and clinging to it and drawing himtoward me. "See, look at him. It has all gone sweetly, sweetly, sweetlyup to this. Shall I hold the candle for you?"

My friend d'Harmonville, Planard, whatever he was, came to me, pullingoff his gloves, which he popped into his pocket. 

"The candle, a little this way, " he said, and stooping over me he lookedearnestly in my face. He touched my forehead, drew his hand across it, and then looked in my eyes for a time. 

"Well, doctor, what do you think?" whispered the Count. 

"How much did you give him?" said the Marquis, thus suddenly stunteddown to a doctor. 

"Seventy drops, " said the lady. 

"In the hot coffee?"

"Yes; sixty in a hot cup of coffee and ten in the liqueur. "

Her voice, low and hard, seemed to me to tremble a little. It takes along course of guilt to subjugate nature completely, and prevent thoseexterior signs of agitation that outlive all good. 

The doctor, however, was treating me as coolly as he might a subjectwhich he was about to place on the dissecting-table for a lecture. 

He looked into my eyes again for awhile, took my wrist, and applied hisfingers to the pulse. 

"That action suspended, " he said to himself. 

Then again he placed something, that for the moment I saw it looked likea piece of gold-beater's leaf, to my lips, holding his head so far thathis own breathing could not affect it. 

"Yes, " he said in soliloquy, very low. 

Then he plucked my shirt-breast open and applied the stethoscope, shifted it from point to point, listened with his ear to its end, as iffor a very far-off sound, raised his head, and said, in like manner, softly to himself, "All appreciable action of the lungs has subsided. "

Then turning from the sound, as I conjectured, he said:

"Seventy drops, allowing ten for waste, ought to hold him fast for sixhours and a half-that is ample. The experiment I tried in the carriagewas only thirty drops, and showed a highly sensitive brain. It would notdo to kill him, you know. You are certain you did not exceed_seventy_?"

"Perfectly, " said the lady. 

"If he were to die the evaporation would be arrested, and foreignmatter, some of it poisonous, would be found in the stomach, don't yousee? If you are doubtful, it would be well to use the stomach-pump. "

"Dearest Eugenie, be frank, be frank, do be frank, " urged the Count. 

"I am _not_ doubtful, I am _certain_, " she answered. 

"How long ago, exactly? I told you to observe the time. "

"I did; the minute-hand was exactly there, under the point of thatCupid's foot. "

"It will last, then, probably for seven hours. He will recover then; theevaporation will be complete, and not one particle of the fluid willremain in the stomach. "

It was reassuring, at all events, to hear that there was no intention tomurder me. No one who has not tried it knows the terror of the approachof death, when the mind is clear, the instincts of life unimpaired, andno excitement to disturb the appreciation of that entirely new horror. 

The nature and purpose of this tenderness was very, very peculiar, andas yet I had not a suspicion of it. 

"You leave France, I suppose?" said the ex-Marquis. 

"Yes, certainly, tomorrow, " answered the Count. 

"And where do you mean to go?"

"That I have not yet settled, " he answered quickly. 

"You won't tell a friend, eh?"

"I can't till I know. This has turned out an unprofitable affair. "

"We shall settle that by-and-by. "

"It is time we should get him lying down, eh, " said the Count, indicating me with one finger. 

"Yes, we must proceed rapidly now. Are his night-shirt andnight-cap--you understand--here?"

"All ready, " said the Count. 

"Now, Madame, " said the doctor, turning to the lady, and making her, inspite of the emergency, a bow, "it is time you should retire. "

The lady passed into the room in which I had taken my cup of treacherouscoffee, and I saw her no more. The Count took a candle and passedthrough the door at the further end of the room, returning with a rollof linen in his hand. He bolted first one door then the other. 

They now, in silence, proceeded to undress me rapidly. They were notmany minutes in accomplishing this. 

What the doctor had termed my night-shirt, a long garment which reachedbelow my feet, was now on, and a cap, that resembled a female nightcapmore than anything I had ever seen upon a male head, was fitted uponmine, and tied under my chin. 

And now, I thought, I shall be laid in a bed to recover how I can, and, in the meantime, the conspirators will have escaped with their booty, and pursuit be in vain. 

This was my best hope at the time; but it was soon clear that theirplans were very different. The Count and Planard now went, together, into the room that lay straight before me. I heard them talking low, anda sound of shuffling feet; then a long rumble; it suddenly stopped; itrecommenced; it continued; side by side they came in at the door, theirbacks toward me. They were dragging something along the floor that madea continued boom and rumble, but they interposed between me and it, sothat I could not see it until they had dragged it almost beside me; andthen, merciful heaven! I saw it plainly enough. It was the coffin I hadseen in the next room. It lay now flat on the floor, its edge againstthe chair in which I sat. Planard removed the lid. The coffin was empty. 

Chapter XXVI

CATASTROPHE

"Those seem to be good horses, and we change on the way, " said Planard. "You give the men a Napoleon or two; we must do it within three hoursand a quarter. Now, come; I'll lift him upright, so as to place his feetin their proper berth, and you must keep them together and draw thewhite shirt well down over them. "

In another moment I was placed, as he described, sustained in Planard'sarms, standing at the foot of the coffin, and so lowered backward, gradually, till I lay my length in it. Then the man, whom he calledPlanard, stretched my arms by my sides, and carefully arranged thefrills at my breast and the folds of the shroud, and after that, takinghis stand at the foot of the coffin made a survey which seemed tosatisfy him. 

The Count, who was very methodical, took my clothes, which had just beenremoved, folded them rapidly together and locked them up, as Iafterwards heard, in one of the three presses which opened by doors inthe panel. 

I now understood their frightful plan. This coffin had been prepared forme; the funeral of St. Amand was a sham to mislead inquiry; I had myselfgiven the order at Père la Chaise, signed it, and paid the fees for theinterment of the fictitious Pierre de St. Amand, whose place I was totake, to lie in his coffin with his name on the plate above my breast, and with a ton of clay packed down upon me; to waken from thiscatalepsy, after I had been for hours in the grave, there to perish by adeath the most horrible that imagination can conceive. 

If, hereafter, by any caprice of curiosity or suspicion, the coffinshould be exhumed, and the body it enclosed examined, no chemistry coulddetect a trace of poison, nor the most cautious examination theslightest mark of violence. 

I had myself been at the utmost pains to mystify inquiry, should mydisappearance excite surmises, and had even written to my fewcorrespondents in England to tell them that they were not to look for aletter from me for three weeks at least. 

In the moment of my guilty elation death had caught me, and there was noescape. I tried to pray to God in my unearthly panic, but only thoughtsof terror, judgment, and eternal anguish crossed the distraction of myimmediate doom. 

I must not try to recall what is indeed indescribable--the multiformhorrors of my own thoughts. I will relate, simply, what befell, everydetail of which remains sharp in my memory as if cut in steel. 

"The undertaker's men are in the hall, " said the Count. 

"They must not come till this is fixed, " answered Planard. "Be goodenough to take hold of the lower part while I take this end. " I was notleft long to conjecture what was coming, for in a few seconds moresomething slid across, a few inches above my face, and entirely excludedthe light, and muffled sound, so that nothing that was not very distinctreached my ears henceforward; but very distinctly came the working of aturnscrew, and the crunching home of screws in succession. Than thesevulgar sounds, no doom spoken in thunder could have been moretremendous. 

The rest I must relate, not as it then reached my ears, which was tooimperfectly and interruptedly to supply a connected narrative, but as itwas afterwards told me by other people. 

The coffin-lid being screwed down, the two gentlemen arranged the roomand adjusted the coffin so that it lay perfectly straight along theboards, the Count being specially anxious that there should be noappearance of hurry or disorder in the room, which might have suggestedremark and conjecture. 

When this was done, Doctor Planard said he would go to the hall tosummon the men who were to carry the coffin out and place it in thehearse. The Count pulled on his black gloves, and held his whitehandkerchief in his hand, a very impressive chief-mourner. He stood alittle behind the head of the coffin, awaiting the arrival of thepersons who accompanied Planard, and whose fast steps he soon heardapproaching. 

Planard came first. He entered the room through the apartment in whichthe coffin had been originally placed. His manner was changed; there wassomething of a swagger in it. 

"Monsieur le Comte, " he said, as he strode through the door, followed byhalf-a-dozen persons, "I am sorry to have to announce to you a mostunseasonable interruption. Here is Monsieur Carmaignac, a gentlemanholding an office in the police department, who says that information tothe effect that large quantities of smuggled English and other goodshave been distributed in this neighborhood, and that a portion of themis concealed in your house. I have ventured to assure him, of my ownknowledge, that nothing can be more false than that information, andthat you would be only too happy to throw open for his inspection, at amoment's notice, every room, closet, and cupboard in your house. "

"Most assuredly, " exclaimed the Count, with a stout voice, but a verywhite face. "Thank you, my good friend, for having anticipated me. Iwill place my house and keys at his disposal, for the purpose of hisscrutiny, so soon as he is good enough to inform me of what specificcontraband goods he comes in search. "

"The Count de St. Alyre will pardon me, " answered Carmaignac, a littledryly. "I am forbidden by my instructions to make that disclosure; andthat I _am_ instructed to make a general search, this warrant willsufficiently apprise Monsieur le Comte. "

"Monsieur Carmaignac, may I hope, " interposed Planard, "that you willpermit the Count de St. Alyre to attend the funeral of his kinsman, wholies here, as you see--" (he pointed to the plate upon the coffin)--"andto convey whom to Pere la Chaise, a hearse waits at this moment at thedoor. "

"That, I regret to say, I cannot permit. My instructions are precise;but the delay, I trust, will be but trifling. Monsieur le Comte will notsuppose for a moment that I suspect him; but we have a duty to perform, and I must act as if I did. When I am ordered to search, I search;things are sometimes hid in such bizarre places. I can't say, forinstance, what that coffin may contain. "

"The body of my kinsman, Monsieur Pierre de St. Amand, " answered theCount, loftily. 

"Oh! then you've seen him?"

"Seen him? Often, too often. " The Count was evidently a good deal moved. 

"I mean the body?"

The Count stole a quick glance at Planard. 

"N--no, Monsieur--that is, I mean only for a moment. "

Another quick glance at Planard. 

"But quite long enough, I fancy, to recognize him?" insinuated thatgentleman. 

"Of course--of course; instantly--perfectly. What! Pierre de St. Amand?Not know him at a glance? No, no, poor fellow, I know him too well forthat. "

"The things I am in search of, " said Monsieur Carmaignac, "would fit ina narrow compass--servants are so ingenious sometimes. Let us raise thelid. "

"Pardon me, Monsieur, " said the Count, peremptorily, advancing to theside of the coffin and extending his arm across it, "I cannot permitthat indignity--that desecration. "

"There shall be none, sir--simply the raising of the lid; you shallremain in the room. If it should prove as we all hope, you shall havethe pleasure of one other look, really the last, upon your belovedkinsman. "

"But, sir, I can't. "

"But, Monsieur, I must. "

"But, besides, the thing, the turnscrew, broke when the last screw wasturned; and I give you my sacred honor there is nothing but the body inthis coffin. "

"Of course, Monsieur le Comte believes all that; but he does not know sowell as I the legerdemain in use among servants, who are accustomed tosmuggling. Here, Philippe, you must take off the lid of that coffin. "

The Count protested; but Philippe--a man with a bald head and a smirchedface, looking like a working blacksmith--placed on the floor a leatherbag of tools, from which, having looked at the coffin, and picked withhis nail at the screw-heads, he selected a turnscrew and, with a fewdeft twirls at each of the screws, they stood up like little rows ofmushrooms, and the lid was raised. I saw the light, of which I thought Ihad seen my last, once more; but the axis of vision remained fixed. As Iwas reduced to the cataleptic state in a position nearly perpendicular, I continued looking straight before me, and thus my gaze was now fixedupon the ceiling. I saw the face of Carmaignac leaning over me with acurious frown. It seemed to me that there was no recognition in hiseyes. Oh, Heaven! that I could have uttered were it but one cry! I sawthe dark, mean mask of the little Count staring down at me from theother side; the face of the pseudo-Marquis also peering at me, but notso full in the line of vision; there were other faces also. 

"I see, I see, " said Carmaignac, withdrawing. "Nothing of the kindthere. "

"You will be good enough to direct your man to re-adjust the lid of thecoffin, and to fix the screws, " said the Count, taking courage;"and--and--really the funeral must proceed. It is not fair to thepeople, who have but moderate fees for night-work, to keep them hourafter hour beyond the time. "

"Count de St. Alyre, you shall go in a very few minutes. I will direct, just now, all about the coffin. "

The Count looked toward the door, and there saw a _gendarme_; andtwo or three more grave and stalwart specimens of the same force werealso in the room. The Count was very uncomfortably excited; it wasgrowing insupportable. 

"As this gentleman makes a difficulty about my attending the obsequiesof my kinsman, I will ask you, Planard, to accompany the funeral in mystead. "

"In a few minutes;" answered the incorrigible Carmaignac. "I must firsttrouble you for the key that opens that press. "

He pointed direct at the press in which the clothes had just been lockedup. 

"I--I have no objection, " said the Count--"none, of course; only theyhave not been used for an age. I'll direct someone to look for the key. "

"If you have not got it about you, it is quite unnecessary. Philippe, try your skeleton-keys with that press. I want it opened. Whose clothesare these?" inquired Carmaignac, when, the press having been opened, hetook out the suit that had been placed there scarcely two minutes since. 

"I can't say, " answered the Count. "I know nothing of the contents ofthat press. A roguish servant, named Lablais, whom I dismissed about ayear ago, had the key. I have not seen it open for ten years or more. The clothes are probably his. "

"Here are visiting cards, see, and here a markedpocket-handkerchief--'R. B. ' upon it. He must have stolen them from aperson named Beckett--R. Beckett. 'Mr. Beckett, Berkeley Square, ' thecard says; and, my faith! here's a watch and a bunch of seals; one ofthem with the initials 'R. B. ' upon it. That servant, Lablais, must havebeen a consummate rogue!"

"So he was; you are right, Sir. "

"It strikes me that he possibly stole these clothes, " continuedCarmaignac, "from the man in the coffin, who, in that case, would beMonsieur Beckett, and not Monsieur de St. Amand. For wonderful torelate, Monsieur, the watch is still going! The man in the coffin, Ibelieve, is not dead, but simply drugged. And for having robbed andintended to murder him, I arrest you, Nicolas de la Marque, Count de St. Alyre. "

In another moment the old villain was a prisoner. I heard his discordantvoice break quaveringly into sudden vehemence and volubility; nowcroaking--now shrieking as he oscillated between protests, threats, andimpious appeals to the God who will "judge the secrets of men!" And thuslying and raving, he was removed from the room, and placed in the samecoach with his beautiful and abandoned accomplice, already arrested;and, with two _gendarmes_ sitting beside them, they were immediatedriving at a rapid pace towards the Conciergerie. 

There were now added to the general chorus two voices, very different inquality; one was that of the gasconading Colonel Gaillarde, who had withdifficulty been kept in the background up to this; the other was that ofmy jolly friend Whistlewick, who had come to identify me. 

I shall tell you, just now, how this project against my property andlife, so ingenious and monstrous, was exploded. I must first say a wordabout myself. I was placed in a hot bath, under the direction ofPlanard, as consummate a villain as any of the gang, but now thoroughlyin the interests of the prosecution. Thence I was laid in a warm bed, the window of the room being open. These simple measures restored me inabout three hours; I should otherwise, probably, have continued underthe spell for nearly seven. 

The practices of these nefarious conspirators had been carried on withconsummate skill and secrecy. Their dupes were led, as I was, to bethemselves auxiliary to the mystery which made their own destructionboth safe and certain. 

A search was, of course, instituted. Graves were opened in Pere laChaise. The bodies exhumed had lain there too long, and were too muchdecomposed to be recognized. One only was identified. The notice for theburial, in this particular case, had been signed, the order given, andthe fees paid, by Gabriel Gaillarde, who was known to the officialclerk, who had to transact with him this little funereal business. Thevery trick that had been arranged for me, had been successfullypracticed in his case. The person for whom the grave had been ordered, was purely fictitious; and Gabriel Gaillarde himself filled the coffin, on the cover of which that false name was inscribed as well as upon atomb-stone over the grave. Possibly the same honor, under my pseudonym, may have been intended for me. 

The identification was curious. This Gabriel Gaillarde had had a badfall from a runaway horse about five years before his mysteriousdisappearance. He had lost an eye and some teeth in this accident, beside sustaining a fracture of the right leg, immediately above theankle. He had kept the injuries to his face as profound a secret as hecould. The result was, that the glass eye which had done duty for theone he had lost remained in the socket, slightly displaced, of course, but recognizable by the "artist" who had supplied it. 

More pointedly recognizable were the teeth, peculiar in workmanship, which one of the ablest dentists in Paris had himself adapted to thechasms, the cast of which, owing to peculiarities in the accident, hehappened to have preserved. This cast precisely fitted the gold platefound in the mouth of the skull. The mark, also, above the ankle, in thebone, where it had reunited, corresponded exactly with the place wherethe fracture had knit in the limb of Gabriel Gaillarde. 

The Colonel, his younger brother, had been furious about thedisappearance of Gabriel, and still more so about that of his money, which he had long regarded as his proper keepsake, whenever death shouldremove his brother from the vexations of living. He had suspected for along time, for certain adroitly discovered reasons, that the Count deSt. Alyre and the beautiful lady, his companion, countess, or whateverelse she was, had pigeoned him. To this suspicion were added some othersof a still darker kind; but in their first shape, rather the exaggeratedreflections of his fury, ready to believe anything, than well-definedconjectures. 

At length an accident had placed the Colonel very nearly upon the rightscent; a chance, possibly lucky, for himself, had apprised the scoundrelPlanard that the conspirators--himself among the number--were in danger. The result was that he made terms for himself, became an informer, andconcerted with the police this visit made to the Château de la Carque atthe critical moment when every measure had been completed that wasnecessary to construct a perfect case against his guilty accomplices. 

I need not describe the minute industry or forethought with which thepolice agents collected all the details necessary to support the case. They had brought an able physician, who, even had Planard failed, wouldhave supplied the necessary medical evidence. 

My trip to Paris, you will believe, had not turned out quite soagreeably as I had anticipated. I was the principal witness for theprosecution in this _cause célèbre_, with all the _agrémens_that attend that enviable position. Having had an escape, as my friendWhistlewick said, "with a squeak" for my life, I innocently fancied thatI should have been an object of considerable interest to Parisiansociety; but, a good deal to my mortification, I discovered that I wasthe object of a good-natured but contemptuous merriment. I was a_balourd, a benêt, un âne_, and figured even in caricatures. Ibecame a sort of public character, a dignity, "Unto which I was not born, "

and from which I fled as soon as I conveniently could, without evenpaying my friend, the Marquis d'Harmonville, a visit at his hospitablechateau. 

The Marquis escaped scot-free. His accomplice, the Count, was executed. The fair Eugenie, under extenuating circumstances--consisting, so far asI could discover of her good looks--got off for six years' imprisonment. 

Colonel Gaillarde recovered some of his brother's money, out of the notvery affluent estate of the Count and soi-disant Countess. This, and theexecution of the Count, put him in high good humor. So far frominsisting on a hostile meeting, he shook me very graciously by the hand, told me that he looked upon the wound on his head, inflicted by the knobof my stick, as having been received in an honorable though irregularduel, in which he had no disadvantage or unfairness to complain of. 

I think I have only two additional details to mention. The bricksdiscovered in the room with the coffin, had been packed in it, in straw, to supply the weight of a dead body, and to prevent the suspicions andcontradictions that might have been excited by the arrival of an emptycoffin at the chateau. 

Secondly, the Countess's magnificent brilliants were examined by alapidary, and pronounced to be worth about five pounds to a tragedyqueen who happened to be in want of a suite of paste. 

The Countess had figured some years before as one of the cleverestactresses on the minor stage of Paris, where she had been picked up bythe Count and used as his principal accomplice. 

She it was who, admirably disguised, had rifled my papers in thecarriage on my memorable night-journey to Paris. She also had figured asthe interpreting magician of the palanquin at the ball at Versailles. Sofar as I was affected by that elaborate mystification it was intended tore-animate my interest, which, they feared, might flag in the beautifulCountess. It had its design and action upon other intended victims also;but of them there is, at present, no need to speak. The introduction ofa real corpse--procured from a person who supplied the Parisiananatomists--involved no real danger, while it heightened the mystery andkept the prophet alive in the gossip of the town and in the thoughts ofthe noodles with whom he had conferred. 

I divided the remainder of the summer and autumn between Switzerland andItaly. 

As the well-worn phrase goes, I was a sadder if not a wiser man. A greatdeal of the horrible impression left upon my mind was due, of course, tothe mere action of nerves and brain. But serious feelings of another anddeeper kind remained. My afterlife was ultimately formed by the shock Ihad then received. Those impressions led me--but not till after manyyears--to happier though not less serious thoughts; and I have deepreason to be thankful to the all-merciful Ruler of events for an earlyand terrible lesson in the ways of sin.