THE ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT 
by J. Sheridan Le Fanu



PROLOGUE
THE curious case which I am about to place before you, is referred to, very 
pointedly, and more than once, in the extraordinary Essay upon the Drugs of 
the Dark and the Middle Ages, from the pen of Doctor Hesselius. 

  This Essay he entitles Mortis Imago, and he, therein, discusses the Vinum 
letiferum, the Beatifica, the Somnus Angelorum, the Hypnus Sagarum, the Aqua 
Thessalliæ, and about twenty other infusions and distillations, well known 
to the sages of eight hundred years ago, and two of which are still, he 
alleges, known to the fraternity of thieves, and, among them, as police-
office inquiries sometimes disclose to this day, in practical use. 

  The Essay, Mortis Imago, will occupy, as nearly as I can at present 
calculate, two volumes, the ninth and tenth, of the collected papers of Dr 
Martin Hesselius. 

  This Essay, I may remark in conclusion, is very curiously enriched by 
citations, in great abundance, from mediæval 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 cases equally 
striking, but hardly, I think, so effective as mere narratives; in this 
irregular form of publication, it is simply as a story that I present it. 

  

CHAPTER I

ON THE ROAD
IN the eventful year, 1815, I was exactly three-and-twenty, and had just 
succeeded to a very large sum in consols and other securities. The first 
fall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to English excursionists, 
anxious, let us suppose, to improve their minds by foreign travel; and I -- 
the slight cheek of the "hundred days" removed, by the genius of Wellington, 
on the field of Waterloo -- was now added to the philosophic throng. 

  I was posting up to Paris from Bruxelles, following, I presume, the route 
that the allied army had pursued but a few weeks before -- more carriages 
than you could believe were pursuing the same line. You could not look back 
or forward, without seeing into far perspective the clouds of dust which 
marked the line of the long series of vehicles. We were perpetually passing 
relays of return-horses, on their way, jaded and dusty, to the inns from 
which they had been taken. They were arduous times for those patient public 
servants. The whole world seemed posting up to Paris. 

  I ought to have noted it more particularly, but my head was so full of 
Paris and the future that I passed the intervening scenery with little 
patience and less attention; I think, however, that it was about four miles 
to the frontier side of a rather picturesque little town, the name of which, 
as of many more important places through which I posted in my hurried 
journey, I forget, and about two hours before sunset, that we came up with a 
carriage in distress. 

  It was not quite an upset. But the two leaders were lying flat. The booted 
postilions had got down, and two servants who seemed very much at sea in 
such matters, were by way of assisting them. A pretty little bonnet and head 
were popped out of the window of the carriage in distress. Its tournure, and 
that of the shoulders that also appeared for a moment, was captivating: I 
resolved to play the part of a good Samaritan; stopped my chaise, jumped 
out, and with my servant lent a very willing hand in the emergency. Alas! 
the lady with the pretty bonnet wore a very thick black veil. I could see 
nothing but the pattern of the Bruxelles lace as she drew back. 

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

  One of my very few accomplishments, besides boxing, which was cultivated 
by all Englishmen at that time, was French; and I replied, I hope and 
believe grammatically. Many bows being exchanged, the old gentleman's head 
went in again, and the demure, pretty little bonnet once more appeared. 

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

  The arms that were emblazoned on the panel were peculiar; I remember 
especially 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 one leg, 
and in the other claw held a stone. This is, I believe, the emblem of 
vigilance. Its oddity struck me, and remained impressed upon my memory. 
There were supporters besides, but I forget what they were. The courtly 
manners of these people, the style of their servants, the elegance of their 
travelling 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 mean on 
that of snobs or moral flunkies. Superiority of rank is a powerful and 
genuine influence in love. The idea of superior refinement is associated 
with it. The careless notice of the squire tells more upon the heart of the 
pretty milk-maid than years of honest Dobbin's manly devotion, and so on and 
up. It is an unjust world! 

  But in this case there was something more. I was conscious of being good-
looking. I really believe I was; and there could be no mistake about 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 quite enough and for both? 
I was instinctively aware that the lady was looking on me with no unwilling 
eyes; and, through her veil, I felt the power of her gaze. 

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

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

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

  Audacious as I was, I did not care to inquire in what room I should find 
them. I peeped into the apartment to my right, and then into that on my 
left. My people were not there. I ascended the stairs. A drawing-room door 
stood open. I entered with the most innocent air in the world. It was a 
spacious room, and, beside myself, contained but one living figure -- a very 
pretty and lady-like one. There was the very bonnet with which I had fallen 
in love. The lady stood with her back toward me. I could not tell whether 
the envious veil was raised; she was reading a letter. 

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

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

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

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

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

  I ought to have retreated as noiselessly as I came in, before my presence 
was detected. But I was too much interested to move from the spot, for a few 
moments longer; and while they were passing, she raised her 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, with a 
haughty stare, and hastily the lady lowered her black veil, and turned 
about. 

  I fancied that she hoped I had not seen her. I was watching every look and 
movement, the minutest, with an attention as intense as if an ordeal 
involving 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. Those 
sentiments that take such sudden possession of young men were now dominating 
my curiosity. My audacity faltered before her; and I felt that my presence 
in this room was probably an impertinence. This point she quickly settled, 
for the same very sweet voice I had heard before, now said coldly, and this 
time in French, "Monsieur cannot be aware that this 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; for the 
lady said, by way it seemed of softening matters, "I am happy, however, to 
have an opportunity of again thanking Monsieur for the assistance, so prompt 
and effectual, which he had the goodness to render us to-day." 

  It was more the altered tone in which it was spoken, than the speech 
itself, that encouraged me. It was also true that she need not have 
recognized me; and if she had, she certainly was not obliged to thank me 
over again. 

  All this was indescribably flattering, and all the more so that it 
followed so quickly on her slight reproof. The tone in which she spoke had 
become low and timid, and I observed that she turned her head quickly 
towards a second door of the room; I fancied that the gentleman in the black 
wig, a jealous husband perhaps, might reappear through it. Almost at the 
same moment, a voice at once reedy and nasal was heard snarling some 
directions to a servant, and evidently approaching. It was the 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 tone that 
resembled entreaty, at the same time gently waving her hand toward the door 
through which I had entered. Bowing again very low, I stepped back, and 
closed the door. 

  I ran down the stairs, very much elated. I saw the host of the Belle 
Étoile 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 asked 
whether I could have it. 

  He was extremely troubled, but that apartment and two adjoining rooms were 
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 we 
have ceased to inquire the names or titles of our guests -- we designate 
them simply by the rooms they occupy." 

  "What stay do they make?" 

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

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

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

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

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

  I took them instantly. 

  It was plain these people meant to make a stay here; at least they would 
not go till morning. I began to feel that I was all but engaged in an 
adventure. 

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

  Among these objects, I thought I recognized the travelling carriage, and 
one 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 sights and 
sounds which in such a place attend upon a period of extraordinary crush and 
traffic. By this time the sun was near its setting, and threw its golden 
beams on the red brick chimneys of the offices, and made the two barrels, 
that figured as pigeon-houses, on the tops of poles, look as if they were on 
fire. Everything in this light becomes picturesque; and things interest us 
which, in the sober grey of morning, are dull enough. 

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

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

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

  Nothing daunted, I forthwith administered that laxative which, on 
occasion, 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 in 
this carriage, and whom, you may remember, I and my servant assisted to-day 
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 know 
not, she may be his daughter." 

  "Can you tell me where they live?" 

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

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

  "Nothing worth relating, Monsieur; in fact, I was hired in Bruxelles, on 
the very day they started. Monsieur Picard, my fellow-servant, Monsieur the 
Comte's gentleman, he has been years in his service, and knows everything; 
but he never speaks except to communicate an order. From him I have learned 
nothing. We are going to Paris, however, and there I shall speedily pick up 
all about them. At present I am as ignorant of all 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 think he 
will tell anything." 

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

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

  "St Clair, shut the door; come here. I can't rest till I have made out 
something about those people of rank who have got the apartments under mine. 
Here are fifteen francs; make out the servants we assisted to-day have them 
to a petit souper, and come back and tell me their entire history. I have, 
this moment, seen one of them who knows nothing, and has communicated it. 
The other, whose name I forget, is the unknown nobleman's valet, and knows 
everything. Him you must pump. It is, of course, the venerable peer, and not 
the young lady who accompanies him, that interests me-you understand? 
Begone! fly! and return with all the details I sigh for, and every 
circumstance that can possibly interest me." 

  It was a commission which admirably suited the tastes and spirits of my 
worthy St Clair, to whom, you will have observed, I had accustomed myself to 
talk with the peculiar familiarity which the old French comedy establishes 
between master and valet. 

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

  With several wise looks, nods and shrugs, he withdrew; and looking down 
from 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 impatience and 
suspense; when the minute hand of his watch travels as slowly as the hour 
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 handsome nose 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 that he 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, and its 
hour was approaching. This was consolatory. Three-quarters of an hour, 
however, still interposed. How was I to dispose of that interval? 

  I had two or three idle books, it is true, as travelling-companions; but 
there are many moods in which one cannot read. My novel lay with my rug and 
walking-stick on the sofa, and I did not care if the heroine and the hero 
were both drowned together in the water barrel that I saw in the inn-yard 
under my window. I took a turn or two up and down my room, and sighed, 
looking at myself in the glass, adjusted my great white "choker," folded and 
tied after Brummel, the immortal "Beau," put on a buff waist-coat and my 
blue swallow-tailed coat with gilt buttons; I deluged my pocket-handkerchief 
with Eau-de-Cologne (we had not then the variety of bouquets with which the 
genius of perfumery has since blessed us) I arranged my hair, on which I 
piqued myself, and which I loved to groom in those days. That dark-brown 
chevelure, with a natural curl, is now represented by a few dozen perfectly 
white hairs, and its place -- a smooth, bald, pink head -- knows it no more. 
But let us forget these mortifications. It was then rich, thick, and dark-
brown. I was making a very careful toilet. I took my unexceptionable hat 
from its case, and placed it lightly on my wise head, as nearly as memory 
and practice enabled me to do so, at that very slight inclination which the 
immortal person I have mentioned was wont to give to his. A pair of light 
French gloves and a rather club-like knotted walking-stick, such as just 
then came into vogue for a year or two again in England, in the phraseology 
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 the 
wonderful eyes which I had that evening beheld for the first time, and 
never, never could forget! In plain terms, it was all done in the vague, 
very vague hope that those eyes might behold the unexceptionable get-up of a 
melancholy slave, and retain the image, not altogether without secret 
approbation. 

  As I completed my preparations the light failed me; the last level streak 
of sunlight disappeared, and a fading twilight only remained. I sighed in 
unison with the pensive hour, and threw open the window, intending to look 
out for a moment before going downstairs. I perceived instantly that the 
window underneath mine was also open, for I heard two voices in 
conversation, although I could not distinguish what they were saying. 

  The male voice was peculiar; it was, as I told you, reedy and nasal. I 
knew it, of course, instantly. The answering voice spoke in those sweet 
tones which I recognized only too easily. The dialogue was only for a 
minute; the repulsive male voice laughed, I fancied, with a kind of devilish 
satire, and retired from the window, so that I almost ceased to hear 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 least exciting 
in the colloquy. What would I not have given that it had been a quarrel -- a 
violent one -- and I the redresser of wrongs, and the defender of insulted 
beauty! Alas! so far as I could pronounce upon the character of the tones I 
heard, they might be as tranquil a pair as any in existence. In a moment 
more the lady began to sing an odd little chanson. I need not remind you how 
much farther the voice is heard singing than speaking. I could distinguish 
the words. The voice was of that exquisitely sweet kind which is called, I 
believe, a semi-contralto; it had something pathetic, and something, I 
fancied, a little mocking in its tones. I venture a clumsy, but adequate 
translation 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 not 
desire, I believe, to amuse the grooms and hostlers in the yard with our 
music." 

  The lady's voice laughed gaily. 

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

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

  What a charming voice this Countess had! How it melted, swelled, and 
trembled! How it moved, and even agitated me! What a pity that a hoarse old 
jackdaw should have power to crow down such a Philomel! "Alas! what a life 
it is!" I moralized, wisely. "That beautiful Countess, with the patience of 
an angel and the beauty of a Venus and the accomplishments of all the Muses, 
a slave! She knows perfectly who occupies the apartments over hers; she 
heard me raise my window. One may conjecture pretty well for whom that music 
was intended -- aye, old gentleman, and for 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 chance 
that the beautiful songstress might emerge. I dropped my stick on the lobby, 
near their door, and you may be sure it took me some little time to pick it 
up! Fortune, nevertheless, did not favour me. I could not stay on 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 an 
hour to the moment of supper. 

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

  

CHAPTER IV

MONSIEUR DROQVILLE
FULL of this exciting hope I sauntered out upon the steps of the Belle 
Étoile. It was now night, and a pleasant moonlight over everything. I had 
entered more into my romance since my arrival, and this poetic light 
heightened the sentiment. What a drama if she turned out to be the Count'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 was accosted by a tall 
and very elegantly made gentleman, who appeared to be about fifty. His air 
was courtly and graceful, and there was in his whole manner and appearance 
something so distinguished that it was impossible not to suspect him of 
being a person of rank. 

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

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

  MY DEAR BECKETT, 

  I beg to introduce my very dear friend, the Marquis d'Harmonville, who 
will explain to you the nature of the services it may be in your power to 
render him and us." 

  He went on to speak of the Marquis as a man whose great wealth, whose 
intimate relations with the old families, and whose legitimate influence 
with the court rendered him the fittest possible person for those friendly 
offices which, at the desire of his own sovereign, and of our government, he 
has so obligingly undertaken. It added a great deal to my perplexity, when I 
read, further: 

  "By-the-bye, Walton was here yesterday, and told me that your seat was 
likely to be attacked; something, he says, is unquestionably going on at 
Domwell. You know there is an awkwardness in my meddling ever so cautiously. 
But I advise, if it is not very officious, your making Haxton look after it 
and report immediately. I fear it is serious. I ought to have mentioned 
that, for reasons that you will see, when you have talked with him for five 
minutes, the Marquis -- with the concurrence of all our friends -- drops his 
title, for a few weeks, and is at present plain Monsieur Droqville. I am 
this moment going to town, and can say no more. 

Yours faithfully,    
R---- 

  I was utterly puzzled. I could scarcely boast of Lord R----'s I 
acquaintance. I knew no one named Haxton, and, except my hatter, no one 
called Walton; and this peer wrote as if we were intimate friends! I looked 
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 very slightly, 
to Lord R----; but the letter was not intended for me. My name is Richard 
Beckett -- this is to Mr Stanhope Beckett, the member for Shillingsworth. 
What can I say, or do, in this unfortunate situation? I can only give you my 
honour as a gentleman, that, for me, the letter, which I now return, shall 
remain as unviolated a secret as before I opened it. I am so shocked and 
grieved that such a mistake should have occurred!" 

  I dare say my honest vexation and good faith were pretty legibly written 
in my countenance; for the look of gloomy embarrassment which had for a 
moment 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 little 
secret. As a mistake was destined to occur, I have reason to thank my good 
stars that it should have been with a gentleman of honour. Monsieur Beckett 
will permit me, I hope, to place his name among those of my friends?" 

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

  "If, Monsieur, I can persuade you to visit me at Claironville, in 
Normandy, where I hope to see, on the 15th of August, a great many friends, 
whose acquaintance it might interest you to make, I shall be too happy." 

  I thanked him, of course, very gratefully for his hospitality. He 
continued: "I cannot, for the present, see my friends, for reasons which you 
may surmise, at my house in Paris. But Monsieur will be so good as to let me 
know the hotel he means to stay at in Paris; and he will find that although 
the Marquis d'Harmonville is not in town, that Monsieur Droqville 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 which 
Monsieur Droqville can be of use to you, our communication shall not be 
interrupted, and I shall so manage matters that you can easily let me know." 

  I was very much flattered. The Marquis had, as we say, taken a fancy to 
me. Such likings at first sight often ripen into lasting friendships. To be 
sure it was just possible that the Marquis might think it prudent to keep 
the involuntary depositary of a political secret, even so vague a one, in 
good humour. 

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

  I remained upon the steps for a minute, lost in speculation upon this new 
theme of interest. But the wonderful eyes, the thrilling voice, the 
exquisite figure of the beautiful lady who had taken possession of my 
imagination, quickly re-asserted their influence. I was again gazing at the 
sympathetic moon, and descending the steps I loitered along the pavements 
among strange objects, and houses that were antique and picturesque, in a 
dreamy state, thinking. 

  In a little while I turned into the inn-yard again. There had come a lull. 
Instead of the noisy place it was an hour or two before, the yard was 
perfectly still and empty, except for the carriages that stood here and 
there. Perhaps there was a servants' table-d'hôte just then. I was rather 
pleased to find solitude; and undisturbed I found out my lady-love's 
carriage, in the moonlight. I mused, I walked round it; I was as utterly 
foolish and maudlin as very young men, in my situation, usually are. The 
blinds were down, the doors, I suppose, locked. The brilliant moonlight 
revealed everything, and cast sharp, black shadows of wheel, and bar, and 
spring, on the pavement. I stood before the escutcheon painted on the door, 
which I had examined in the daylight. I wondered how often her eyes had 
rested on the same object. I pondered in a 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 is appropriate." 

  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, in undress, 
and was six feet high. Across the nose and eyebrow there was a deep 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 thought himself 
safe in the clouds, for mere sport!" (He shrugged, and laughed malignantly.) 
"See, Monsieur; when a man like me -- a man of energy, you understand, a man 
with all his wits about him, a man who has made the tour of Europe under 
canvas, and, parbleu! often without it -- resolves to discover a secret, 
expose a crime, catch a thief, spit a robber 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 long strides 
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 was plain, 
however, that the cadaverous gentleman who had just apostrophized the 
heraldry of the Count's carriage, with such mysterious acrimony, had not 
intended any of his malevolence for me. He was stung by some old 
recollection, 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 that our antics 
have been watched by a spectator, almost at our elbow. In this case the 
effect was enhanced by the extreme repulsiveness of the face, and, I may 
add, its proximity, for, as I think, it almost touched mine. The enigmatical 
harangue of this person, so full of hatred and implied denunciation, was 
still in my ears. Here at all events was new matter 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 lights the 
gossip of the supper-table might throw upon the subject that interested me 
so powerfully! 

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

  The Count was not there, nor his beautiful companion; but the Marquis 
d'Harmonville, whom I hardly expected to see in so public a place, signed, 
with a significant smile, to a vacant chair beside himself. I secured it, 
and he seemed pleased, and almost immediately entered into conversation 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 about 
the most dangerous capital a high-spirited and generous young gentleman 
could visit without a Mentor. If you have not an experienced friend as a 
companion during your visit ----." He paused. 

  I told him I was not so provided, but that I had my wits about me; that I 
had seen a good deal of life in England, and that I fancied human nature was 
pretty much the same in all parts of the world. The Marquis shook 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 criminal classes, in 
a style of villainy no less peculiar. In Paris the class who live by their 
wits is three or four times as great as in London; and they live much 
better; some of them even splendidly. They are more ingenious than the 
London rogues; they have more animation and invention, and the dramatic 
faculty, in which your countrymen are deficient, is everywhere. These 
invaluable attributes place them upon a totally different level. They can 
affect the manners and enjoy the luxuries 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 of certain 
gaming-tables, billiard-rooms, and other places, including your races, where 
high play goes on; and by superior knowledge of chances, by masking their 
play, by means of confederates, by means of bribery, and other artifices, 
varying with the subject of their imposture, they rob the unwary. But here 
it is more elaborately done, and with a really exquisite finesse. There are 
people whose manners, style, conversation, are unexceptionable, living in 
handsome houses in the best situations, with everything about them in the 
most refined taste, and exquisitely luxurious, who impose even upon the 
Parisian bourgeois, who believe them to be, in good faith, people of rank 
and fashion, because their habits are expensive and refined, and their 
houses are frequented by foreigners of distinction, and, to a degree, by 
foolish young Frenchmen of rank. At all these houses play goes on. The 
ostensible host and hostess seldom join in it; they provide it simply to 
plunder their guests, by means of their accomplices, and thus wealthy 
strangers are inveigled and robbed." 

  "But I have heard of a young Englishman, a son of Lord Rooksbury, who 
broke 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. I raised no less 
a sum than five hundred thousand francs to begin with; I expected to carry 
all before me by the simple expedient of going on doubling 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, that they not only knew all about 
it, but had provided against the possibility of any such experiments; and I 
was pulled up before I had well begun by a rule which forbids the doubling 
of an original stake more than four times consecutively." 

  "And is that rule in force still?" I inquired, chap-fallen. 

  He laughed and shrugged, "Of course it is, my young friend. People who 
live by an art always understand it better than an amateur. I see you had 
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 ray regard for him, I am charmed with you; so you will pardon all 
my, perhaps, too officious questions and advice." 

  I thanked him most earnestly for his valuable counsel, and begged that he 
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 the 
bank where it lies. Never risk a Napoleon in a gaming house. The night I 
went to break the bank I lost between seven and eight thousand pounds 
sterling of your English money; and my next adventure, I had obtained an 
introduction to one of those elegant gaming-houses which affect to be the 
private mansions of persons of distinction, and was saved from ruin by a 
gentleman whom, ever since, I have regarded with increasing respect and 
friendship. It oddly happens he is in this house at this moment. I 
recognized his servant, and made him a visit in his apartments here, and 
found him the same brave, kind, honourable man I always knew him. But that 
he is living so entirely out of the world, now, I should have made a point 
of introducing you. Fifteen years ago he would have been the man of 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 honour, 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-forty years 
younger than himself, and is, of course, although I believe absolutely 
without cause, horribly jealous." 

  "And the lady?" 

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

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

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

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

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

  The tone in which this was spoken was harsh and stentorian, and almost 
made me bounce. I looked round and recognized the officer whose large white 
face had half scared me in the inn-yard, wiping his mouth furiously, 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 of death, 
I'd fight a lion naked, and dash his teeth down his jaws with my fist, and 
flog him to death with his own tail! Set aside, I say, all those attributes, 
which I am allowed to possess, and I am worth six men in 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 me whole again, while your 
tailor would fine -- draw an old coat. Parbleu! gentlemen, if you saw me 
naked, you would laugh! Look at my hand, a sabre-cut across the palm, to the 
bone, to save my head, taken up with three stitches, and five days 
afterwards I was playing ball with an English general, a prisoner in Madrid, 
against the wall of the convent of the Santa Maria de la Castita! At Arcola, 
by the great devil himself! that was an action. Every man there, gentlemen, 
swallowed as much smoke in five minutes as would smother you all in this 
room! I received, at the same moment, two musket balls in the thighs, a 
grape shot through the calf of my leg, a lance through my left shoulder, a 
piece of a shrapnel in the left deltoid, a bayonet through the cartilage of 
my right ribs, a sabre-cut that carried away a pound of flesh from my chest, 
and the better part of a congreve rocket on my forehead. Pretty well, ha, 
ha! and all while you'd say bah! and in eight days and a half I was making a 
forced march, without shoes, and only one gaiter, the life and soul of my 
company, and as sound as a roach! " 

  "Bravo! Bravissimo! Per Bacco! un gallant' uomo!" exclaimed, in a martial 
ecstacy, a fat little Italian, who manufactured toothpicks and wicker 
cradles on the island of Notre Dame; "your exploits shall resound through 
Europe! and the history of those wars should be written in your blood!" 

  "Never mind! a trifle!" exclaimed the soldier. "At Ligny, the other day, 
where we smashed the Prussians into ten hundred thousand milliards of atoms, 
a bit of a shell cut me across the leg and opened an artery. It was spouting 
as high as the chimney, and in half a minute I had lost enough to fill a 
pitcher. I must have expired in another minute, if I had not whipped off my 
sash like a flash of lightning, tied it round my leg 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 hæmorrhage and 
saved my life. But, sacrebleu! gentlemen, I lost so much blood, I have been 
as pale as the bottom of a plate ever since. No matter. A trifle. Blood well 
spent, gentlemen." He applied 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 low tone over 
the back of his chair to the waiter; "who came in that travelling carriage, 
dark yellow and black, that stands in the middle of the yard, with arms and 
supporters emblazoned on the door, and a red stork, as red as my facings?" 

  The waiter could not say. 

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

  "Pardon me, Monsieur," he said. "Did I not see you examining the panel of 
that carriage at the same time that I did so, this evening? Can you tell 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 sat 
down again, and I could hear him sacré-ing and muttering to himself, and 
grinning and scowling. I could not tell whether he was alarmed or furious. 

  I turned to say a word or two to the Marquis, but he was gone. Several 
other people had dropped out also, and the supper party soon broke up. Two 
or three substantial pieces of wood smouldered on the hearth, for the night 
had turned out chilly. I sat down by the fire in a great armchair of carved 
oak, with a marvellously high back that looked as old as the days 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 may sit 
here for half-an-hour." 

  "Certainly, Monsieur." 

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

  

CHAPTER VI

THE NAKED SWORD
A MAN who has been posting all day long, and changing the air he breathes 
every half hour, who is well pleased with himself, and has nothing on earth 
to trouble him, and who sits alone by a fire in a comfortable chair after 
having eaten a hearty supper, may be pardoned if 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 dishes is not the 
most favourable precursor to pleasant dreams. 

  I had a dream as I took mine ease in mine inn on this occasion. I fancied 
myself in a huge cathedral, without light, except from four tapers 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 of the Countess de St 
Alyre. The place seemed empty, it was cold, and I could 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 fancy 
to shape and furnish the black void that yawned all round me. I heard a 
sound like the slow tread of two persons walking up the flagged aisle. A 
faint echo told of the vastness of the place. An awful sense of expectation 
was upon me, and I was horribly frightened when the body that lay on the 
catafalque said (without stirring), in a whisper that froze 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, the 
Count de St Alyre, glided to the head of the figure and placed his long thin 
hands under it. The white-faced Colonel, with the scar across his face, 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, and started 
to my feet with a gasp. 

  I was wide awake, but the broad, wicked face of Colonel Gaillarde was 
staring, white as death, at me from the other side of the hearth. "Where is 
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 demi-tasse of 
café noir, and now drank his tasse, diffusing a pleasant perfume 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 escaped me. "I did 
not know for some moments where I was." 

  "You are the young gentleman who has the apartments over the Count and 
Countess 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 some night," 
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 I 
shall. When I get the first inch of the thread fast between my finger and 
thumb, it goes hard but I follow it up, bit by bit, little by little, 
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 its secret, fast in my 
fingers. Ingenious! Crafty as five foxes! wide awake as a weazel! Parbleu! 
if I had descended to that occupation I should have made my fortune as a 
spy. Good wine here?" he glanced interrogatively 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, with some 
disgust, filling it again. "You ought to have told me to order 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 my 
hat, I walked out with no other company than my sturdy walking-stick. I 
visited the inn-yard, and looked up to the windows of the Countess's 
apartments. They were closed, however, and I had not even the unsubstantial 
consolation of contemplating the light in which that beautiful lady was at 
that moment writing, or reading, or sitting and thinking of -- anyone you 
please. 

  I bore this serious privation as well as I could, and took a little 
saunter through the town. I shan't bore you with moonlight effects, nor with 
the maunderings of a man who has fallen in love at first sight with a 
beautiful face. My ramble, it is enough to say, occupied about half an hour, 
and, returning by a slight détour, I found myself in a little square, with 
about two high gabled houses on each side, and a rude stone statue, worn by 
centuries of rain, on a pedestal in the centre of the pavement. Looking at 
this statue was a slight and rather tall man, whom I instantly recognized as 
the Marquis d'Harmonville: he knew me almost as quickly. He walked a step 
towards me, shrugged and laughed: 

  "You are surprised to find Monsieur Droqville staring at that old stone 
figure by moonlight. Anything to pass the time. You, I see, suffer from 
ennui, as I do. These little provincial towns! Heavens! what an effort it is 
to live in them! If I could regret having formed in early life a friendship 
that does me honour, I think its condemning me to a sojourn in such a place 
would make me do so. You go on towards Paris, I suppose, 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 in 
which every rôle is already cast. I am but an amateur, and induced solely by 
friendship, to take a part." 

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

  "Oh! yes, to be sure. He is a little mad; he has had some bad injuries of 
the head. He used to plague the people in the War Office to death. He has 
always some delusion. They contrived some employment for him -- not 
regimental, of course -- but in this campaign Napoleon, who could spare 
nobody, placed him in command of a regiment. He was always a desperate 
fighter, and such men were more than ever needed." 

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

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

  "You said, I think, that Colonel Gaillarde was at the Belle Étoile for a 
week 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 furious 
altercation was going on in the hall, in which the yell of Colonel Gaillarde 
out-topped all other sounds. 

  Most young men like, at least, to witness a row. But, intuitively, I felt 
that this would interest me in a very special manner. I had only fifty yards 
to run, when I found myself in the hall of the old inn. The principal actor 
in this strange drama was, indeed, the Colonel, who stood facing the old 
Count de St Alyre, who, in his travelling costume, with his black silk scarf 
covering the lower part of his face, confronted him; he had evidently been 
intercepted in an endeavour to reach his carriage. A little in the rear of 
the Count stood the Countess, also in travelling costume, with her thick 
black veil down, and holding in her delicate fingers a white rose. You can't 
conceive a more diabolical effigy of hate and fury than the Colonel; the 
knotted veins stood out on his forehead, his eyes were leaping from their 
sockets, he was grinding his teeth, and froth was on his lips. His sword was 
drawn in his hand, and he accompanied his yelling denunciations with stamps 
upon the floor and flourishes of his weapon in the air. 

  The host of the Belle Étoile was talking to the Colonel in soothing terms 
utterly thrown away. Two waiters, pale with fear, stared uselessly from 
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 would have 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 all the devils, if either of 
you try to get out of that door I'll take your heads off." 

  For a moment I had stood aghast. Here was a situation! I walked up to the 
lady; she laid her hand wildly upon my arm. "Oh! Monsieur," she whispered, 
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 stepping 
between the Count and Gaillarde, as he shrieked his invective, "Hold your 
tongue, and clear the way, you ruffian, you bully, you coward!" I roared. 

  A faint cry escaped the lady, which more than repaid the risk I ran, as 
the 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, reckless of 
all consequences but my condign punishment and quite resolved to cleave me 
to the teeth, I struck him across the side of his head with my heavy 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 as if dead. 

  I did not care one of his own regimental buttons, whether he was dead or 
not; I was, at that moment, carried away by such a tumult of delightful and 
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 right or 
left, or thanking anybody, over the floor, out of the door, down the steps, 
and into his carriage. Instantly I was at the side of the beautiful 
Countess, thus left to shift for herself; I offered her my arm, which she 
took, and I led her to the carriage. She entered, and I shut the door. All 
this without a word. 

  I was about to ask if there were any commands with which she would honour 
me -- 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 lips almost 
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 tremblingly pressed 
into mine the rose which she had held in her fingers during the agitating 
scene she had just passed through. 

  All this took place while the Count was commanding, entreating, cursing 
his servants, tipsy, and out of the way during the crisis, my conscience 
afterwards insinuated, by my clever contrivance. They now mounted to their 
places with the agility of alarm. The postilions' whips cracked, the horses 
scrambled into a trot, and away rolled the carriage, with its precious 
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 the 
distance. 

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

Favour 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 raised 
the wounded hero of a hundred fights partly against the wall, and propped 
him at each side with portmanteaus and pillows, and poured a glass of 
brandy, which was duly placed to his account, into his big mouth, where, for 
the first time, such a Godsend remained unswallowed. 

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

  I began to grow a little uneasy. A disagreeable surprise, if my excursion, 
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 established apparatus. 

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

  I saw my host in the apartment in which we had supped. Wherever you employ 
a force of any sort, to carry a point of real importance, reject all nice 
calculations of economy. Better to be a thousand per cent. over the mark, 
than the smallest fraction of a unit under it. I instinctively felt this. 

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

  I immediately placed the Colonel's broken head upon the tapis. We both 
agreed that if I had not given him that rather smart tap of my walking-cane, 
he would have beheaded half the inmates of the Belle Étoile. There was not a 
waiter in the house who would not verify that statement on oath. 

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

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

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

  I ran upstairs. I found my servant St Clair in my room. At sight of him, 
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 Count de 
St Alyre -- the old gentleman who was so near being sliced like a cucumber 
to-night, I am informed, by the sword of the general whom Monsieur, by a 
turn of fortune, has put to bed of an apoplexy." 

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

  He knew, of course; he always knew everything. 

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

  "Yes; I believe a very beautiful and charming young lady -- I cannot say -
- it may have been she, his daughter by an earlier marriage. I saw only the 
Count himself to-day." 

  The Marquis was growing a little sleepy, and, in a little while, he 
actually fell asleep in his corner. I dozed and nodded; but the Marquis 
slept like a top. He awoke only for a minute or two at the next posting-
house where he had fortunately secured horses by sending on his man, he told 
me. "You will excuse my being so dull a companion," he said, "but till to-
night I have had but two hours' sleep, for more than sixty 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 really excellent." He ordered two cups of café 
noir, and waited, with his head from the window. " We will keep the cups," 
he said, as he received them from the waiter, " and the tray. Thank you." 

  There was a little delay as he paid for these things; and then he took in 
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 a 
miniature table. 

  "I can't endure being waited for and hurried," he said, I like to sip my 
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 or 
three nights; and find it difficult to keep awake. This coffee will do 
wonders 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 a 
brilliant and amusing account of Parisian life, schemes, and dangers, all 
put so as to furnish me with practical warnings of the most valuable kind. 

  In spite of the amusing and curious stories which the Marquis related with 
so much point and colour, I felt myself again becoming gradually drowsy and 
dreamy. 

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

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

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

  The Marquis lifted his despatch-box from the floor, placed it on his 
knees, unlocked it, and took out what proved to be a lamp, which he hung 
with two hooks, attached to it, to the window opposite to him. He lighted it 
with a match, put on his spectacles, and taking out a bundle of letters 
began to read them carefully. 

  We were making way very slowly. My impatience had hitherto employed four 
horses from stage to stage. We were in this emergency, only too happy to 
have 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 the image 
which wearied me, but something prevented my being able to shut my eyes. I 
tried again and again; but, positively, I had lost the power of closing 
them. 

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

  Up to this I had experienced no sense of horror. Whatever it was, simple 
night-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 occupation so 
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 the 
effort 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, turning to 
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 he 
sleeps! when the carriage stops he will waken." 

  He then replaced his letters in the despatch-box, locked it, put his 
spectacles 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 this 
time. The carriage drew up, I saw an inn-door open, and a light issuing from 
it. 

  "Here we are!" said my companion, turning gaily to me. But I did not 
awake. 

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

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

  He trimmed his lamp, poured in some oil; and taking care not to disturb 
me, with another kind smile and another word of caution to my servant he got 
out, and I heard him talking to St Clair, as they entered the inn-door, and 
I was left in my corner, in the carriage, in the same state. 

  

CHAPTER VIII

A THREE MINUTES' VISIT
I HAVE suffered extreme and protracted bodily pain, at different periods of 
my life, but anything like that misery, thank God, I never endured before or 
since. I earnestly hope it may not resemble any type of death to which we 
are liable. I was, indeed, a spirit in prison; and unspeakable was my dumb 
and unmoving agony. 

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

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

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

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

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

  This young man had thick moustaches and an imperial, and I observed that 
he 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 all done 
in a moment; leaning toward me, and shading his eyes with his gloved hand, 
he examined my face closely for a few seconds. 

  This man had come as noiselessly as a ghost; and everything he did was 
accomplished with the rapidity and decision that indicated a well-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 my breast pocket, from which he 
took my precious white rose and all the letters it contained, among which 
was a paper of some consequence to me. 

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

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

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

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

  We were now out of the town, pursuing our journey at the same moderate 
pace. We had left the scene of my police visit, as I should have termed it, 
now two leagues behind us, when I suddenly felt a strange throbbing in 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 car, swelled, and burst there. The 
indescribable tension of my brain seemed all at once to give way; there was 
an odd humming in my head, and a sort of vibration through every nerve of my 
body, such as I have experienced in a limb that has been, in popular 
phraseology, asleep. I uttered a cry and half rose from my seat, and then 
fell back trembling, and with a sense of mortal faintness. 

  The Marquis stared at me, took my hand, and earnestly asked if I was ill. 
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 to describe the 
violation of my letters, during the time of his absence from the carriage. 

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

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

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

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

  "A friend of mine once had an attack as like yours as possible. It was on 
board-ship, and followed a state of high excitement. He was a brave man like 
you; and was called on to exert both his strength and his courage suddenly. 
An hour or two after, fatigue overpowered him, and he appeared to fall into 
a sound sleep. He really sank into a state which he afterwards described so 
that I think it must have been precisely the same affection** as yours." 

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

  "I knew him for years after, and never heard of any such thing. What 
strikes me is a parallel in the predisposing causes of each attack. Your 
unexpected 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 friend did, to 
sleep." 

  "I wish," he resumed, "one could make out who the coquin was who examined 
your letters. It is not worth turning back, however, because we should learn 
nothing. Those people always manage so adroitly. I am satisfied, however, 
that he must have been an agent of the police. A rogue of any other kind 
would have robbed you." 

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

  "We grow so intimate," said he, at last, "that I must remind you that I am 
not, for the present, the Marquis d'Harmonville, but only Monsieur 
Droqville; nevertheless, when we get to Paris, although I cannot see you 
often I may be of use. I shall ask you to name to me the hotel at which you 
mean to put up; because the Marquis being, as you are aware, on his travels, 
the Hotel d'Harmonville is, for the present, tenanted only by two or three 
old servants, who must not even see Monsieur Droqville. That gentleman will, 
nevertheless, contrive to get you access to the box of Monsieur le Marquis, 
at the Opera, as well, possibly, as to other places more difficult; and so 
soon as the diplomatic office of the Marquis d'Harmonville is ended, and he 
at liberty to declare himself, he will not excuse his friend, Monsieur 
Beckett, from fulfilling his promise 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. The 
countenance of a great man on the spot, just then, taking so kind an 
interest in the stranger whom he had, as it were, blundered upon, might make 
my visit ever so many degrees more delightful than I had anticipated. 

  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 of the 
place where a relay of horses awaited us, and where, as it turned out, we 
were to part. 

  

CHAPTER IX

GOSSIP AND COUNSEL
MY eventful journey was over at last. I sat in my hotel window looking out 
upon brilliant Paris, which had, in a moment, recovered all its gaiety, and 
more than its accustomed bustle. Everyone had read of the kind of excitement 
that followed the catastrophe of Napoleon, and the second restoration of the 
Bourbons. I need not, therefore, even if, at this distance, I could, recall 
and describe my experiences and impressions of the peculiar aspect of Paris, 
in those strange times. It was, to be sure, my first visit. But often as I 
have seen it since, I don't think I ever saw that delightful capital in a 
state, pleasurably so excited and exciting. 

  I had been two days in Paris, and had seen all sorts of sights, and 
experienced none of that rudeness and insolence of which others complained 
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 and delightful 
interest to my rambles and drives in the streets and environs, and my visits 
to the galleries and other sights of the metropolis. 

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

  It was now evening, and I was beginning to fear that my patrician 
acquaintance had quite forgotten me, when the waiter presented me the card 
of "Monsieur Droqville"; and, with no small elation and hurry, I desired 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 the 
little speeches which are usual. "I keep in the shade during the daytime, 
and even now I hardly ventured to come in a close carriage. The friends for 
whom I have undertaken a rather critical service, have so ordained 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 I cannot command it oftener 
during the next fortnight; during my absence I had directed my secretary to 
give it for any night to the first of my friends who might apply, and the 
result is, that I find next to nothing left at my disposal." 

  I thanked him very much. 

  "And now a word in my office of Mentor. You have not come here, of course, 
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 take 
you myself from house to house. One friend at your side is worth many 
letters. Make no intimacies, no acquaintances, until then. You young men 
like best to exhaust the public amusements of a great city, before 
embarrassing yourselves with the engagements of society. Go to all these. It 
will occupy you, day and night, for at least three weeks. When this is over, 
I shall be at liberty, and will myself introduce you to the brilliant but 
comparatively quiet routine of society. Place yourself in my hands; and in 
Paris remember, when once in society, you are always there." 

  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 places you ought to go to. Take your 
map, and write letters or numbers upon the points I will indicate, and we 
will make out a little list. All the places that I shall mention to you are 
worth seeing." 

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

  "In a fortnight, perhaps in a week," he said, "I shall be at leisure to be 
of real use to you. In the meantime, be on your guard. You must not play; 
you will be robbed if you do. Remember, you are surrounded, here, by 
plausible swindlers and villains of all kinds, who subsist by devouring 
strangers. Trust no one but those you know." 

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

  Alas! he had not seen them since. He did not know where they were staying. 
They had a fine old house only a few leagues from Paris; but he thought it 
probable that they would remain, for a few days at least, in the city, as 
preparations would, no doubt, be necessary, after so long an 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 an income 
which affords them the comforts and even the elegancies of life, living as 
they do, in a very quiet and retired way, in this cheap country." 

  "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, exquisite 
features, and the most delicate complexion in the world, I believe that she 
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, the 
other night, in the hall of the Belle Étoile, when I broke that fellow's 
head who was bullying the old Count. But her veil was so thick I could not 
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 -- they 
are worth, La Perelleuse says, about a million of francs. The Count wishes 
them sold and turned into revenue, which he offers to settle as she pleases. 
The Countess, whose they are, resists, and for a reason which, 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 she 
marries 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's so -
--- " 

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

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

  "Yes, the very man for a philosopher, like you! And he falls asleep after 
dinner; and his wife don't. But, seriously, he has retired from the gay and 
the great world, and has grown apathetic; and so has his wife; 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 of 
laying out some of it to great advantage. Several collections of really good 
pictures, belonging to persons who have mixed themselves up in this 
Bonapartist restoration, must come within a few weeks to the hammer. You can 
do wonders when these sales commence. There will be startling bargains! 
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 so near forgetting. 
There is to be next week, the very thing you would enjoy so much, because 
you see so little of it in England -- I mean a bal masqué, conducted, it is 
said, with more than usual splendour. It takes place at Versailles -- all 
the world will be there; there is such a 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 was nothing 
to prevent my enjoying all that was enjoyable in the French capital. You may 
easily suppose how two days were passed. At the end of that time, and at 
about the same hour, Monsieur Droqville called again. 

  Courtly, good-natured, gay, as usual, he told me that the masquerade ball 
was fixed for the next Wednesday, and that he had applied for a card 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, which I 
did not understand, in silence, and then inquired rather sharply. And will 
Monsieur Beckett be good enough to say why not? 

  was a little surprised, but answered the simple truth: I had made an 
engagement for that evening with two or three English friends, and did not 
see how I could. 

  "Just so! You English, wherever you are, always look out for your English 
boors, your beer and 'bifstek'; and when you come here, instead of trying to 
learn something of the people you visit, and pretend to study, you are 
guzzling and swearing, and smoking with one another, and no wiser or more 
polished at the end of your travels than if 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 or leave 
it, just as you please. I suppose I shall have my trouble for my pains; but 
it is not usual when a man such as I takes trouble, asks a favour, and 
secures a privilege for an acquaintance, to treat him so." 

  This was astonishingly impertinent. 

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

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

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

  "Pray say not a word more; my vexation was entirely on your account; and I 
expressed it, I am only too conscious, in terms a great deal too strong, 
which, I am sure, your good nature will pardon. Those who know me a little 
better are aware that I sometimes say a good deal more than I intend; and am 
always sorry when I do. Monsieur Beekett will forget that 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 extended 
his 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 at 
Versailles, as a rush would be made to take them; and advised my going down 
next morning for the purpose. 

  I ordered horses accordingly for eleven o'clock; and, after a little more 
conversation, the Marquis d'Harmonville bade me good-night, and ran down the 
stairs with his handkerchief to his mouth and nose, and, as I saw 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 de 
France it was plain that I was not a moment too soon, if, indeed, I were not 
already too late. 

  A crowd of carriages were drawn up about the entrance, so that I had no 
chance of approaching except by dismounting and pushing my way among the 
horses. The hall was full of servants and gentlemen screaming to the 
proprietor, who in a state of polite distraction was assuring them, one and 
all, that there was not a room or a closet disengaged in his entire house. 

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

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

  I had at this time remarkably long and clear sight, and if I had been 
impatient before, guess what my feelings were when I saw an open carriage 
pass along the narrow strip of roadway left open at the other side, a 
barouche in which I was certain I recognized the veiled Countess and her 
husband. This carriage had been brought to a walk by a cart which occupied 
the whole breadth of the narrow way, and was moving with the 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 the barouche. But, 
unfortunately, I was more of a Murat than a Moltke, and preferred 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't know how; tumbled through a sort 
of gig, in which an old gentleman and a dog were dozing; stepped with an 
incoherent apology over the side of an open carriage, in which were four 
gentlemen engaged in a hot dispute; tripped at the far side in getting out, 
and fell flat across the backs of a pair of horses, who instantly began 
plunging and threw me head foremost in the dust. 

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

  I stood for a while amid a storm of sacré-ing, tempered disagreeably with 
laughter; and in the midst of these, while endeavouring to beat the dust 
from my clothes with my handkerchief, I heard a voice with which I was 
acquainted call, "Monsieur Beckett." 

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

  "You may as well leave Versailles," he said; "you have learned, no doubt, 
that there is not a bed to hire in either of the hotels; and I can add that 
there is not a room to let in the whole town. But I have managed something 
for you that will answer just as well. Tell your servant to follow us, and 
get in here and sit beside me. 

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

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

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

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

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

  "I shan't go in -- but you will find it a comfortable place; at all events 
better 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 is haunted-
I should have been, in my young days, I know. But don't allude to that awful 
fact in hearing of your host, for I believe it is a sore subject. Adieu. If 
you want to enjoy yourself at the ball, take my advice and go in a domino. I 
think I shall look in; and certainly, if I do, 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 will have 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 go into keep near the door till we meet. I shall 
look for you at all the doors I pass; and you, in the same way, for me; and 
we must find each other soon. So that is understood. I can't enjoy a thing 
of that kind with any but a young person; a man of my age requires the 
contagion of young spirits and the companionship of someone who enjoys 
everything spontaneously. Farewell; we meet to-night." 

  By this time I was standing on the road; I shut the carriage-door; bid him 
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 and 
sequestered character of the scene contrasted strangely with the glare and 
bustle of the Parisian life, to which my eye and ear had become accustomed. 

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

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

  My host conducted me to my apartment. It was a large room, a little 
sombre, panelled with dark wainscoting, and furnished in a stately and 
sombre style, long out of date. There was a wide hearth, and a heavy 
mantelpiece, carved with shields, in which I might, had I been curious 
enough, have discovered a correspondence with the heraldry on the outer 
walls. There was something interesting, melancholy, and even depressing in 
all this. I went to the stone-shafted window, and looked out upon a small 
park, with a thick wood, forming the background of a château which presented 
a cluster of such conical-topped turrets as I have just now mentioned. 

  The wood and château were melancholy objects. They showed signs of 
neglect, and almost of decay; and the gloom of fallen grandeur, and a 
certain 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, a 
pity that its proprietor is not more wealthy?" 

  "Perhaps so, Monsieur." 

  "Perhaps?"--I repeated, and looked at him. "Then I suppose he is not very 
popular." 

  "Neither one thing nor the other, Monsieur," he answered; "I meant only 
that 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 considerable time." 

  "And is he poor?" I inquired. 

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

  "From what I have heard, however, I should think he cannot be very poor?" 
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. His body was 
sent to the Count's house here, and by him buried in Père la Chaise, as the 
poor gentleman had desired. The Count was in profound affliction; 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 not 
always the five sous in his pocket. Yet, Monsieur, his courage does 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, he 
could vex me in two or three ways, so could I him. But, on the whole, it is 
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 he had 
nothing to relate. Should I think differently, by-and-by, I could try 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 learned 
afterwards that he had served under Napoleon in his early Italian campaigns. 

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

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

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

  "I saw him to-day, 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 for 
the occasion. There is but one who sleeps at the château. Such a life must 
be terrifying for Madame the Countess," he replied. 

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

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

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

  "Well, St Clair," said I, as my servant entered, and began to arrange my 
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 fortunate 
enough 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 that diabolical 
miracles have taken place in this house." 

  "What do you mean? Revenants?" 

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

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

  "It is only this, Monsieur, that an ex-master-of-the-horse of the late 
king, 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 time vanished, 
visibly, as I told you, before the faces of half-a-dozen credible witnesses! 
The other was a Russian nobleman, six feet high and upwards, who, standing 
in the centre of the room, downstairs, describing to seven gentlemen of 
unquestionable veracity the last moments of Peter the Great, and having a 
glass of eau de vie in his left hand, and his tasse de café, nearly 
finished, in his right, in like manner vanished. His boots were found on the 
floor where he had been standing; and the gentleman at his right found, to 
his astonishment, his cup of coffee 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 this 
house, and was broken by the curé while conversing with Mademoiselle Fidone 
in the housekeeper's room; but of the Russian nobleman himself, nothing more 
was ever seen or heard. Parbleu! when we go out of the Dragon Volant, I hope 
it may be by the door. I heard all this, Monsieur, from the postilion who 
drove us." 

  "Then it must be true!" said I, jocularly: but I was beginning to feel the 
gloom of the view, and of the chamber in which I stood; there had stolen 
over me, I know not how, a presentiment of evil; and my joke was 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 enormous Perspective of the 
"Grande Galerie des Glaces," lighted up on that occasion with no less than 
four thousand wax candles, reflected and repeated by all the mirrors, so 
that the effect was almost dazzling. The grand suite of salons was thronged 
with masques, in every conceivable costume. There was not a single room 
deserted. Every place was animated with music voices, brilliant colours, 
flashing jewels, the hilarity of extemporized comedy, and all the spirited 
incidents of a cleverly sustained masquerade. I had never seen before 
anything in the least comparable to this magnificent fête. I moved along, 
indolently, in my domino and mask, loitering, now and then, to enjoy a 
clever dialogue, a farcical song, or an amusing monologue, but, at the same 
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, as 
the 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 a 
gilded sedan chair, or, rather, a Chinese palanquin, exhibiting the 
fantastic exuberance of "Celestial" decoration, borne forward on gilded 
poles by four richly-dressed Chinese; one with a wand in his hand marched in 
front, and another behind; and a slight and solemn man, with a long black 
beard, a tall fez, such as a dervish is represented as wearing, walked close 
to its side. A strangely-embroidered robe fell over his shoulders, covered 
with hieroglyphic symbols; the embroidery was in black and gold, upon a 
variegated ground of brilliant colours. The robe was bound about his waist 
with a broad belt of gold, with cabalistic devices traced on it in dark red 
and black; red stockings, and shoes embroidered with gold, and pointed and 
curved upward at the toes, in Oriental fashion, appeared below the skirt of 
the robe. The man's face was dark, fixed, and solemn, and his eyebrows 
black, and enormously heavy -- he carried a singular-looking book under his 
arm, a wand of polished black wood in his other hand, and walked with his 
chin sunk on his breast, and his eyes fixed upon the floor. The man in front 
waved his wand right and left to clear the way for the advancing palanquin, 
the curtains of which were closed; and there was something so singular, 
strange and solemn about the whole thing, that I felt at once interested. 

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

  The bearers and the men with the gilded wands forthwith clapped their 
hands, and in silence danced round the palanquin a curious and half-frantic 
dance, which was yet, as to figures and postures, perfectly methodical. This 
was soon accompanied by a clapping of hands and a ha-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 the wizard. 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 plain that he knew every detail about 
the business, which no one on earth had heard of but myself, and two or 
three other men, about the most cautious Persons in France. I shall never 
forget that shock. I saw other people who consulted him, evidently as much 
surprised and more frightened than I. 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 my 
fortunate intervention in his favour at the Belle Étoile; and the Count 
overwhelmed me with polite speeches, and ended by saying, what pleased me 
better still: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The Count, in his mask and domino, moved along, stiffly, with us, toward 
the 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 the procession 
-- 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 Marquis were 
each called on in turn to do likewise as we entered the circle. We paid 
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 outer hand 
grasping the black wand, on which he leaned; his eyes were lowered, as 
before, to the ground; his face looked absolutely lifeless. Indeed, I never 
saw face or figure so moveless, except in death. The first question the 
Count put, was: "Am I married, or unmarried?" 

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

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

  Two or three questions followed, the answers to which seemed to amuse the 
Marquis very much; but the point of which I could not see, for I knew 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, putting 
myself out of the question, do I love anything on earth better than my 
wife?" 

  "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 they 
subscribed on the 25th July, 181l." 

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

  The Count stood stock-still for a minute or so; and one could fancy that 
they 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, he was 
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 gaunt 
figure stalking toward us. It was not a masque. The face was broad, scarred, 
and white. In a word, it was the ugly face of Colonel Gaillarde, who, in the 
costume of a corporal of the Imperial Guard, with his left arm so adjusted 
as to look like a stump, leaving the lower part of the coat-sleeve empty, 
and pinned up to the breast. There were strips of very real sticking-plaster 
across his eyebrow and temple, where my stick had left its mark, to score, 
hereafter, among the more honourable scars of war. 

  

CHAPTER XIII

THE ORACLE TELLS ME WONDERS
I FORGOT for a moment how impervious my mask and domino were to the hard 
stare of the old campaigner, and was preparing for an animated scuffle. It 
was only for a moment, of course; but the count cautiously drew a little 
back as the gasconading corporal, in blue uniform, white vest, and white 
gaiters -- for my friend Gaillarde was as loud and swaggering in his assumed 
character as in his real one of a colonel of dragoons -- drew near. He had 
already twice all but got himself turned out of doors for vaunting 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 not his discretion reminded 
him that the object of his coming there at all, namely, to arrange a meeting 
with an affluent widow, on whom he believed he had made a tender impression, 
would not have been promoted by his premature removal from the festive scene 
of which he was an ornament, in charge of a couple of gendarmes. 

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

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

  "Bravo, Monsieur le prophète! Bravissimo! Here lam. Shall I begin, mon 
sorcier, without further loss of time, to question you?" 

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

  "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 cloth 
protects him. No matter! Why do I pursue them?" 

  "The widow has inflicted a wound on your heart, and the Englishman a wound 
on your head. They are each separately too strong for you; take care 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 will reflect, to 
become a colonel, and the Englishman is unquestionably young." 

  "I will cut his cock's-comb for him," he ejaculated with an oath and a 
grin; 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! A hundred 
thousand thanks! Farewell!" And staring about him, and stretching his lank 
neck as high as he could, he strode away with his scars, and white waistcoat 
and gaiters, and his bearskin shako. 

  I had been trying to see the person who sat in the palanquin. I had only 
once an opportunity of a tolerably steady peep. What I saw was singular. The 
oracle was dressed, as I have said, very richly, in the Chinese fashion. He 
was a figure altogether on a larger scale than the interpreter, who stood 
outside. The features seemed to me large and heavy, and the head was carried 
with a downward inclination! the eyes were closed, and the chin rested on 
the breast of his embroidered pelisse. The face seemed fixed, and the very 
image of apathy. Its character and pose seemed an exaggerated repetition of 
the. immobility of the figure who communicated with the noisy outer world. 
This face looked blood-red; but that was caused, I concluded, by the light 
entering through the red silk curtains. All this struck me almost at a 
glance; I had not many seconds in which to make my observation. The ground 
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 the black 
wand, I glanced over my shoulder to see whether the Count was near. 

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

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

  I thought for a moment. I wished to test the prophet. A Church-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 colloquy a 
little out of an embarrassing channel, "have I ever learned any words of 
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, slowly and 
distinctly, these words which, I need scarcely tell you, I instantly 
recognized: 

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

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

  "Good Heavens! How miraculous! Words heard most assuredly, by no ear on 
earth 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 was 
no trace of meaning, or even of a consciousness that the words he had 
uttered 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 minutest 
acquaintance with every detail of my little romance, of which not even the 
Marquis knew anything! And I, the questioner, masked and robed so that 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 the 
beard, 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, at 
least, a superstition. How it exalts the imagination! How it enervates the 
reason! How credulous it makes us! 

  All this which, in the case of another I should have laughed at, most 
powerfully affected me in my own. It inflamed my ardour, and half crazed my 
brain, and even influenced my conduct. 

  The spokesman of this wonderful trick -- if trick it were -- now waved me 
backward with his wand, and as I withdrew, my eyes still fixed upon the 
group, and this time encircled with an aura of mystery in my fancy; backing 
toward the ring of spectators, I saw him raise his hand suddenly, with a 
gesture of command, as a signal to the usher who carried 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, which 
descended with a sharp clatter, and secured it at the bottom; and then the 
man in the tall fez, with the black beard and wand, began a sort of dervish 
dance. In this the men with the gold wands joined, and finally, in an outer 
ring, the bearers, the palanquin being the centre of the circles described 
by these solemn dancers, whose pace, little by little, quickened, whose 
gestures grew sudden, strange, frantic, as the motion became swifter and 
swifter, until at length the whirl became so rapid that the dancers seemed 
to fly by with the speed of a mill-wheel, and amid a general clapping of 
hands, and universal wonder, these strange performers mingled with the 
crowd, and the exhibition, for the time at least, ended. 

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

  "The Count has just gone away to look for his wife. It is a pity she was 
not 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 to 
introduce 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 easy matter 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 particular 
advantage to be gained by presenting you to his wife; I had better go and 
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." The 
paintings remained in my memory, and my adventure of that evening was 
destined to occur there. 

  I sat down upon a sofa, and looked about me. Three or four persons beside 
myself were seated on this roomy piece of gilded furniture. They were 
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 sat apparently 
in a reverie. Nothing could be more graceful. She wore the costume 
perpetuated in Collignan's full-length portrait of Mademoiselle de la 
Valière. It is, as you know, not only rich, but elegant. Her hair was 
powdered, but one could perceive that it was naturally a dark brown. One 
pretty little foot appeared, and could anything be more exquisite than her 
hand? 

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

  I was convinced that she was pretty. Availing myself of the privilege of a 
masquerade, a microcosm in which it is impossible, except by voice and 
allusion, 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 gift more 
difficult to conceal than Mademoiselle supposes." 

  "Yet Monsieur has succeeded very well," she said in the same sweet and 
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 a mask, and yet 
I recognize the lady; beauty is like that precious stone in the 'Arabian 
Nights,' which emits, no matter how concealed, a light that betrays it." 

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

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

  "What Countess?" 

  "If you know me, you must know that she is my dearest friend. Is she not 
beautiful?" 

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

  Everyone who knows me, knows who my best beloved friend is. You don't know 
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 like 
to 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 simple 
question like mine. Know then, once for all, that nothing disgusts a person 
of spirit so much as suspicion. You, Monsieur, are a gentleman of 
discretion. 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 hate 
diplomacy. It means fraud and cowardice. Don't you think I know him? The 
gentleman with the cross of white ribbon on his breast? I know the Marquis 
d'Harmonville perfectly. You see to what good purpose your ingenuity 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, or listlessness, 
or curiosity, you wished to converse, not with a lady, but with 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 know 
perfectly whom you intend amusing with compliments and melancholy 
declamation, and whom, with that amiable purpose, you have been seeking." 

  "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 I 
proposed speaking to any lady in the tone you describe." 

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

  "Must I promise?" 

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

  I hesitated for a moment; but how could she possibly tell? The Countess 
would scarcely have admitted this little romance to anyone; and the mask in 
the La Vallière costume could not possibly know who the masked domino beside 
her was. 

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

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

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

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

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

  "The Countess de St Alyre is, unquestionably the lady to whom I hoped for 
an introduction to-night; but I beg to assure you, also on the honour of a 
gentleman, that she has not the faintest imaginable suspicion that I was 
seeking such an honour, nor, in all probability, does she remember that such 
a person as I exists. I had the honour to render her and the Count a 
trifling service, too trifling, I fear, to have earned more 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 Countess de 
St Alyre, she never forgets a kindness. She does not show all she feels; for 
she is unhappy, and cannot." 

  "Unhappy! I feared, indeed, that might be. But for all the rest that you 
are 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 know 
something of her character; also, there are confidences between us, and I 
may know more than you think of those trifling services of which you suppose 
the recollection is so transitory." 

  I was becoming more and more interested. I was as wicked as other young 
men, and the heinousness of such a pursuit was as nothing, now that self-
love and all the passions that mingle in such a romance were roused. The 
image of the beautiful Countess had now again quite superseded the pretty 
counterpart of La Vallièe, who was before me. I would have given a great 
deal to hear, in solemn earnest, that she did remember the champion who, for 
her sake, had thrown himself before the sabre of an enraged dragoon, with 
only a cudgel in his hand, and conquered. 

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

  "Many things. Her husband is old, jealous, and tyrannical. Is not that 
enough? 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, to 
whom 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 the 
hotels of Versailles?" 

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

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

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

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

  "Very well; you must have observed, if you looked into the park, two or 
three clumps of chestnut and lime trees, growing so close together as to 
form a small grove. You must return to your hotel, change your dress, and, 
preserving a scrupulous secrecy as to why or where you go, leave the Dragon 
Volant, and climb the park wall, unseen; you will easily recognize the grove 
I have mentioned; there you will meet the Countess, who will grant you an 
audience of a few minutes, who will expect the most scrupulous reserve on 
your part, and who will explain to you, in a few 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 was 
astounded. Doubt succeeded. I could not believe these agitating words. 

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

  "Monsieur believes either that I am not, as I pretend to be, in the secret 
which he hitherto supposed to be shared by no one but the Countess and 
himself, or else that I am cruelly mystifying him. That I am in her 
confidence, I swear by all that is dear in a whispered farewell. By the last 
companion of this flower!" and she took for a moment in her fingers the 
nodding head of a white rosebud that was nestled in her bouquet. "By my own 
good star, and hers -- or shall I call it 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 a 
friend would it be friendly to use her dear name so; and all for sake of 
practising a vulgar trick upon you -- a stranger?" 

  "Mademoiselle will forgive me. Remember how very precious is the hope of 
seeing, and speaking to the Countess. Is it wonderful, then, that I should 
falter in my belief? You have convinced me, however, and will forgive 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 not assure 
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 Alyre 
said 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 never introduce 
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 lady 
with him." 

  "I told you so. You will wait a long time for that happiness, if it is 
never to reach you except through his hands. In the meantime, you had better 
not let him see you so near me. He will suspect that we have been talking 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. I smiled 
under my mask as he assured me that the Duchess de la Roqueme had changed 
her place, and taken the Countess with her; but he hoped, at some very early 
time, to have an opportunity of enabling her to make my acquaintance. 

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

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

  

CHAPTER XV

STRANGE STORY OF THE DRAGON VOLANT
THESE fêtes were earlier in those days, and in France, than our modern balls 
are in London. I consulted my watch. It was a little past twelve. 

  It was a still and sultry night; the magnificent suite of rooms, vast as 
some of them were, could not be kept at a temperature less than oppressive, 
especially to people with masks on. In some places the crowd was 
inconvenient, and the profusion of lights added to the heat. I removed my 
mask, therefore, as I saw some other people do, who were as careless of 
mystery as I. I had hardly done so, and began to breathe more comfortably, 
when I heard a friendly English voice call me by my name. 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, except France, revered; and the only 
thing I knew against him, was a habit of allaying his thirst, which was 
excessive, at balls, fêtes, musical parties, and all gatherings, where it 
was to be had, with champagne; and, as he introduced me to his friend, 
Monsieur Carmaignac, I observed that he spoke a little thick. Monsieur 
Carmaignac was little, lean, and as 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 his present 
pleasant mood. He was elevating his eyebrows and screwing his lips oddly, 
and fanning himself vaguely with his mask. 

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

  "I heard you mention," said the French gentleman, "that you had engaged an 
apartment in the Dragon Volant, about half a league from this. When I was in 
a different police department, about four years ago, two very strange cases 
were connected with that house. One was of a wealthy émigré, permitted to 
return to France by the Em-- by Napoleon. He vanished. The other -- equally 
strange -- was the case of a Russian of rank and 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 a 
returned French nobleman and a Russian gentleman. But he made the whole 
story so marvellous -- I mean in the supernatural sense -- that, I confess, 
I did 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 the thing was 
never explained, nor, so far as I know, was a ray of light ever thrown upon 
it." 

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

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

  "Could you describe that room?" 

  "Certainly. It is a spacious, panelled bedroom, up one pair of stairs, in 
the back of the house, and at the extreme right, as you look from its 
windows." 

  "Ho! Really? Why, then, I have got the very room!" I said, beginning to be 
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 the 
particulars -- I happen to know them exactly, because I made an official 
visit, on the first occasion, to the house, to collect evidence; and 
although I did not go down there, upon the second, the papers came before 
me, and I dictated the official letter despatched to the relations of the 
people who had disappeared; they had applied to the government to 
investigate the affair. We had letters from the same relations more than two 
years later, from which we learned that the missing 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 his property before 
the revolution had proceeded so far as to render that next to impossible, 
and retired with a large sum. He brought with him about half a million of 
francs, the greater part of which he invested in the French funds; a much 
larger sum remained in Austrian land and securities. You will observe then 
that this gentleman was rich, and there was no allegation of his having lost 
money, or being in any way embarrassed. 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, and theatres, and 
other reasonable amusements, engrossed him. He did not play. He was a 
middle-aged man, affecting youth, with the vanities which are usual in such 
persons; but, for the rest, he was a gentle and polite person, who disturbed 
nobody -- a person, you see, not likely to provoke an enmity." 

  "Certainly not," I agreed. 

  "Early in the summer of 1811 he got an order permitting him to copy a 
picture in one of these salons, and came down here, to Versailles, for the 
purpose. His work was getting on slowly. After a time he left his hotel 
here, and went, by way of change, to the Dragon Volant; there he took, by 
special choice, the bedroom which has fallen to you by chance. From this 
time, it appeared, he painted little; and seldom visited his apartments in 
Paris. One night he saw the host of the Dragon Volant, and told him that he 
was going into Paris, to remain for a day or two, on very particular 
business; that his servant would accompany him, but that he would retain his 
apartments at the Dragon Volant, and return in a few days. He left some 
clothes there, but packed a portmanteau, took his dressing case and the 
rest, and, with his servant 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, he stopped 
the carriage on a sudden, told his servant that he had changed his mind; 
that he would sleep elsewhere that night, that he had very particular 
business in the north of France, not far from Rouen, that he would set out 
before daylight on his journey, and return in a fortnight. He called a 
fiacre, took in his hand a leather bag which, the servant said, was just 
large enough to hold a few shirts and a coat, but that it was enormously 
heavy, as he could testify, for he held it in his hand, 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 sent him on, in the carriage; and 
he, with the bag I have mentioned, got into the fiacre. Up to that, you see, 
the narrative is quite clear." 

  "Perfectly," I agreed. 

  "Now comes the mystery," said Monsieur Carmaignac. "After that, the Count 
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's 
stockbroker had, by his direction, sold all his stock in the French funds, 
and handed him the cash it realized. The reason he gave him for this measure 
tallied with what he said to his servant. He told him that he was going to 
the north of France to settle some claims, and did not know exactly how much 
might be required. The bag, which had puzzled the servant by its weight, 
contained, no doubt, a large sum in gold. Will Monsieur 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, which might 
be afforded by the driver of the fiacre 'employed on the night of' (so-and-
so), 'at about the hour of half-past ten, by a gentleman, with a black-
leather travelling-bag in his hand, who descended from a private carriage, 
and gave his servant some money, which he counted twice over.' About a 
hundred-and-fifty drivers applied, but not one of them was the right man. We 
did, however, elicit a curious and unexpected piece of evidence in quite 
another quarter. What a racket that plaguey harlequin 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, who knew 
the appearance of the Count perfectly, having been often employed by him as 
a messenger. He stated that about half-past twelve o'clock, on the same 
night -- upon which you are to observe, there was a brilliant moon -- 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 of the Chéteau de la Carque, at the site 
most remote from the point to which he was going. It passes the old 
churchyard of St Aubin, which is separated from the road only by a very low 
fence, and two or three enormous old trees. The boy was a little nervous as 
he approached this ancient cemetery; and, under the bright moonlight, he saw 
a man whom he distinctly recognized as the Count, whom they designated by a 
sobriquet which means 'the man of smiles.' He was looking rueful enough now, 
and was 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 the 
Count Chateau Blassernare, or the man he mistook for him -- his dress was 
not what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he could not be 
mistaken 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 the last time he was 
seen. He has never been heard of since. Nothing could be heard of him in the 
neighbourhood of Rouen. There has been no evidence of his death; and there 
is no sign that he is living." 

  "That certainly is a most singular case," I replied, and was about to ask 
a question or two, when Tom Whistlewick who, without my observing it, had 
been taking a ramble, returned, a great deal more awake, and a great 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 to 
you the other case, that of another tenant of the very same room -- a case 
more mysterious and sinister than the last -- and which occurred in the 
autumn of the same year." 

  "Will you both do a very good-natured thing, and come and dine with me at 
the Dragon Volant to-morrow?" 

  So, as we pursued our way along the Galerie des Glaces, I extracted their 
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 so devilish 
well. Jack Nuffles -- I met him here to-night -- says they are gipsies -- 
where are they, I wonder? I'll go over and have a peep at the prophet." 

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

  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 embroidered hat on 
like a mandarin's; he's fast asleep; and, by Jove, he smells like a 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 slowly toward 
the door. I bade them good-night, reminding them of their promise. And so 
found my way at last to my carriage; and was soon rolling 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 a 
variety of strange and vivid pictures were crowded together in that brief 
space! What an adventure was before me! 

  The silent, moonlighted, solitary road, how it contrasted with the many-
eddied whirl of pleasure from whose roar and music, lights, diamonds and 
colours 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 momentary compunction 
and horror. I wished I had never entered the labyrinth which was leading me, 
I knew not whither. It was too late to think of that now; but the bitter was 
already stealing into my cup; and vague anticipations lay, for a few 
minutes, heavy on my heart. It would not have taken much to make me disclose 
my unmanly state of mind to my lively friend Alfred Ogle, nor even to the 
milder ridicule of the agreeable 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 that 
occasion till three or four in the morning. There were quartered there many 
servants of great people, whose masters would not leave the ball till the 
last moment, and who could not return to their corners in the Dragon Volant 
till their last services had been rendered. 

  I knew, therefore, I should have ample time for my mysterious excursion 
without exciting curiosity by being shut out. 

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

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

  An oblique patch of moonlight was thrown upon the floor from the window to 
which I hastened. I looked out upon the landscape slumbering in those 
silvery beams. There stood the outline of the Château de la Carque, its 
chimneys and many turrets with their extinguisher-shaped roofs black against 
the soft grey sky. There, also, more in the foreground, about midway between 
the window where I stood and the château, but a little to the left, I traced 
the tufted masses of the grove which the lady in the mask had appointed as 
the trysting-place, where I and the beautiful Countess were to meet that 
night. 

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

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

  But time was flying, and the hour already near. I threw my robe upon a 
sofa; I groped out a pair of hoots, which I substituted for those thin 
heelless shoes, in those days called "pumps," without which a gentleman 
could not attend an evening party. I put on my hat and, lastly, I took a 
pair of loaded pistols, which I had been advised were satisfactory 
companions in the then unsettled state of French society; swarms of 
disbanded soldiers, some of them alleged to be desperate characters, being 
everywhere to be met with. These preparations made, I confess I took 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 ten 
minutes or so. You must not go to bed until I return. If the night is very 
beautiful, I may possibly extend my ramble a little." 

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

  When I had got a couple of hundred yards away from the Dragon Volant, my 
minstrelsy totally ceased; and I turned about, and glanced sharply down the 
road, that looked as white as hoar-frost under the moon, and saw the gable 
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. I 
consulted my watch, which the light was sufficiently strong to enable me to 
do. It now wanted but eight minutes of the appointed hour. A thick mantle of 
ivy at this point covered the wall and rose in a clustering head at top. 

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

  Before me rose the appointed grove, which looked as black as a clump of 
gigantic hearse plumes. It seemed to tower higher and higher at every step; 
and cast a broader and blacker shadow toward my feet. On I marched, 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 beat fast with expectation. 

  This grove opened, a little, near the middle; and, in the space thus 
cleared, there stood with a surrounding flight of steps a small Greek temple 
or shrine, with a statue in the centre. It was built of white marble with 
fluted Corinthian columns, and the crevices were tufted with grass; moss had 
shown itself on pedestal and cornice, and signs of long neglect and decay 
were apparent in its discoloured and weather-worn marble. A few feet in 
front of the steps a fountain, fed from the great ponds at the other side of 
the château, was making a constant tinkle and plashing in a wide marble 
basin, and the jet of water glimmered like a shower of diamonds in the 
broken moonlight. The very neglect and half-ruinous state of all this made 
it only the prettier, as well as sadder. I was too intently watching for the 
arrival of the lady, in the direction of the château, to study these things; 
but the half-noted effect of them was romantic, and suggested somehow the 
grotto and the fountain, and the apparition of Egeria. 

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

  "The Countess will be here presently," she said. The lady stood upon the 
open space, and the moonlight fell unbroken upon her. Nothing could be more 
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 jealous tyrant 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 greater the 
danger or the sacrifice, the happier will it make me. Can I aid 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 are chivalrous 
enough to devote yourself to a lady's cause, with no reward but her poor 
gratitude; if you can do these things you can aid her, and earn a foremost 
place, not in her gratitude only, but in her friendship." 

  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, "you 
told me she would soon be here." 

  "That is, if nothing unforeseen should happen; but with the eye of the 
Count 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 the 
adventure of the Belle Étoile?" 

  "She never leaves my thoughts; day and night her beautiful eyes haunt me; 
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, I fancied 
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 in 
some points to be equal to the Countess de St Alyre. I challenge you to say, 
my hand, at least, is less beautiful than hers." As she thus spoke she drew 
her glove off, and extended her hand, back upward, in the moonlight. 

  The lady seemed really nettled. It was undignified and irritating; for in 
this uninteresting competition the precious moments were flying, and my 
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 of irritation. 
"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 a 
sigh, "I will prove all I say." And as she spoke she removed the mask: and 
the Countess de St Alyre, smiling, confused, bashful, more beautiful than 
ever, stood before me! 

  "Good Heavens!" I exclaimed. "How monstrously stupid I have been. And it 
was 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 she extended her 
hand. I took it and carried it to my lips. 

  "No, you must not do that," she said quietly, "we are not old enough 
friends yet. I find, although you were mistaken, that you do remember the 
Countess of the Belle Étoile, and that you are a champion true and fearless. 
Had you yielded to the claims just now pressed upon you by the rivalry 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 you are 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 brave some danger, rather 
than lose my friend for ever. I have but a few moments more. Will you come 
here again to-morrow night, at a quarter past eleven? I will be here at that 
moment; you must exercise the most scrupulous 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 least 
rashness to endanger the secret which made all the interest and value of my 
life. 

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

  "You must come to-morrow night by a different route," she said; "and if 
you come again, we can change it once more. At the other side of the château 
there is a little churchyard, with a ruined chapel. The neighbours 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 a covert 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 have 
decided at last. I have lived a melancholy life; a lonelier life than is 
passed in the cloister. I have had no one to confide in; no one to advise 
me; no one to save me from the horrors of my existence. I have found a brave 
and prompt friend at last. Shall I ever forget the heroic tableau of the 
hall of the Belle Étoile? Have you -- have you really kept the rose I gave 
you, as we parted? Yes -- you swear it. You need not; I trust you. Richard, 
how often have I in solitude repeated your name, learned from my servant. 
Richard, my hero! Oh! Richard! Oh, my king! I love you!" 

  I would have folded her to my heart -- thrown myself at her feet. But this 
beautiful 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 love 
one's husband," she continued, "is to hate him. The Count, ridiculous in all 
else, is formidable in his jealousy. In mercy, then, to me, observe caution. 
Affect to all you speak to, the most complete ignorance of all the people in 
the Château de la Carque; and, if anyone in your presence mentions the Count 
or Countess de St Alyre, be sure you say you never saw either. I shall have 
more to say to you to-morrow night. I have reasons 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 scaled 
the park wall again, and reached the Dragon Volant before its doors were 
closed. 

  I lay awake in my bed, in a fever of elation. I saw, till the dawn broke, 
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 the 
table. He had come, he said, to ask a favour. An accident had happened to 
his carriage in the crowd on leaving the ball, and he begged, if I were 
going into Paris, a seat in mine. I was going in, and was extremely glad of 
his company. He came with me to my hotel; we went up to my rooms. I was 
surprised to see a man seated in an easy chair, with his back towards 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, lying close to his 
narrow head, and showing like carved ebony over a repulsive visage of 
boxwood. His black muffler had been pulled down. His. right arm was in a 
sling. I don't know whether there was anything unusual in his countenance 
that day, or whether it was but the effect of prejudice arising from all I 
had heard in my mysterious interview in his park, but I thought his 
countenance was more strikingly forbidding than I had seen it before. 

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

  He smiled. 

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

  "With great pleasure," said the Marquis, "but not till after six o'clock. 
I must go this moment to a meeting of three or four people whom I 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 contre-temps 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 of his, 
the Count's cousin, Monsieur de St Amand, who had died at his house, the 
Château Clery, had been, in accordance with his written directions, sent for 
burial at Père la Chaise, and, with the permission of the Count de St Alyre, 
would reach his house (the Château de la Carque) at about ten o'clock on the 
night following, to be conveyed thence in a hearse, with any member of the 
family who might wish to attend 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, I could 
scarcely decline, and so I want to attend at the office to have the book 
signed, and the order entered. But here is another misery. By ill luck I 
have sprained my thumb, and can't sign my name for a week to come. However, 
one name answers as well as another. Yours as well as mine. 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 and 
surnames of the deceased, his age, the complaint he died of, and the usual 
particulars; also a note of the exact position in which a grave, the 
dimensions of which were described, of the ordinary simple kind, was to be 
dug, between two vaults belonging to the family of St Amand. The funeral, it 
was stated, would arrive at half-past one o'clock A.M. (the next night but 
one); and he handed me the money, with extra fees, for a burial by night. It 
was a good deal; and I asked him, as he entrusted the 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 the receipt were 
in my name it would constitute me an executor in the eye of the law, and fix 
me in that position. Take it, pray, if you have no objection, in your own 
name." 

  This, accordingly, I did. 

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

  The Count, meanwhile, was leaning back in the carriage, with his black 
silk muffler up to his nose, and his hat shading his eyes, while he dozed 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 I 
had to do, longed once more for my quiet room in the Dragon Volant, the 
melancholy woods of the Château de la Carque, and the tumultuous and 
thrilling influence of proximity to the object of my wild but wicked 
romance. 

  I was delayed some time by my stockbroker. I had a very large sum, as I 
told you, at my banker's, uninvested. I cared very little for a few day's 
interest-very little for the entire sum, compared with the image that 
occupied my thoughts, and beckoned me with a white arm, through the dark, 
toward the spreading lime trees and chestnuts of the Château de la Carque. 
But I had fixed this day to meet him, and was relieved when he told me that 
I had better let it lie in my banker's hands for a few days longer, 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 good deal 
to my chagrin, my two guests, whom I had quite forgotten. I inwardly cursed 
my own stupidity for having embarrassed myself with their agreeable society. 
It could not be helped now, however, and a word to the waiters put all 
things in train for dinner. 

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

  He told me that not only Versailles, but all Paris was in a ferment, in 
consequence 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 left 
standing on the spot where we last saw it. Neither conjuror, nor usher, nor 
bearers had ever returned. When the ball closed, and the company at length 
retired, the servants who attended to put out the lights, and secure the 
doors, found it still there. 

  It was determined, however, to let it stand where it was until next 
morning, by which time, it was conjectured, its owners would send messengers 
to remove it. 

  None arrived. The servants were then ordered to take it away; and its 
extraordinary weight, for the first time, reminded them of its forgotten 
human occupant. Its door was forced; and, judge what was their disgust, when 
they discovered, not a living man, but a corpse! Three or four days must 
have passed since the death of the burly man in the Chinese tunic and 
painted cap. Some people thought it was a trick designed to insult the 
Allies, in whose honour the ball was got up. Others were of opinion that it 
was nothing worse than a daring and cynical jocularity which, shocking as it 
was, might yet be forgiven to the high spirits and irrepressible buffoonery 
of youth. Others, again, fewer in number, and mystically given, insisted 
that the corpse was bona fide necessary to the exhibition, and that the 
disclosures and allusions which had astonished so many people were 
distinctly due to necromancy. 

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

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

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

  "Not even original," said Carmaignac. "Very nearly the same thing was 
done, a hundred years ago or more, at a state ball in Paris; and the rascals 
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 is marked 
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 my 
comparative taciturnity. 

  

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CHURCHYARD
0UR dinner was really good, so were the wines; better, perhaps, at this out-
of-the-way inn, than at some of the more pretentious hotels in Paris. The 
moral effect of a really good dinner is immense -- we all felt it. The 
serenity and good nature that follow are more solid and comfortable than the 
tumultuous benevolences of Bacchus. 

  My friends were happy, therefore, and very chatty; which latter relieved 
me of the trouble of talking, and prompted them to entertain me and one 
another incessantly with agreeable stories and conversation, of which, until 
suddenly a subject emerged which interested me powerfully, I confess, so 
much were my thoughts engaged elsewhere, I heard next to nothing. 

  "Yes," said Carmaignac, continuing a conversation which had escaped me, 
"there was another case, beside that Russian nobleman, odder still. I 
remembered it this morning, but cannot recall the name. He was a tenant of 
the very same room. By-the-by, Monsieur, might it not be as well," he added, 
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 no longer 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 run 
into town so easily at night; and though I stay here for this night at 
least, I don't expect to vanish like those others. But you say there is 
another adventure, of the same kind, connected with the same room. Do let us 
hear it. But take some wine first." 

  The story he told was curious. 

  "It happened," said Carmaignac, "as well as I recollect, before either of 
the other cases. A French gentleman -- I wish I could remember his name -- 
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 been speaking. Your 
apartment, Monsieur. He was by no means young -- past forty -- and very far 
from good-looking. The people here said that he was the ugliest man, and the 
most good-natured, that ever lived. He played on the fiddle, sang, and wrote 
poetry. His habits were odd and desultory. He would sometimes sit all day in 
his room writing, singing, and fiddling, and go out at night for a walk. An 
eccentric man! He was by no means a millionaire, but he had a modicum bonum, 
you understand -- a trifle more than half a million of francs. He consulted 
his stockbroker about investing this money in foreign stocks, and drew the 
entire sum from his banker. You now have the situation of affairs when 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," resumed 
Carmaignac. "You shall hear about himself. The night after this financial 
operation he was seized with a poetic frenzy: he sent for the then landlord 
of this house, and told him that he long meditated an epic, and meant to 
commence that night, and that he was on no account to be disturbed until 
nine o'clock in the morning. He had two pairs of wax candles, a little cold 
supper on a side-table, his desk open, paper enough upon it to contain the 
entire Henriade, and a proportionate store of pens and ink. 

  "Seated at this desk he was seen by the waiter who brought him a cup of 
coffee at nine o'clock, at which time the intruder said he was writing fast 
enough to set fire to the paper -- that was his phrase; he did not look 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 knocked at his 
door and, receiving no answer, looked through the key-hole; the lights were 
still burning, the window-shutters were closed as he had left them; he 
renewed his knocking, knocked louder, no answer came. He reported this 
continued and alarming silence to the innkeeper, who, finding that his guest 
had not left his key in the lock, succeeded in finding another that opened 
it. The candles were just giving up the ghost in their sockets, but there 
was light enough to ascertain that the tenant of the room was gone! The bed 
had not been disturbed; the window-shutter was barred. He must have let 
himself out, and, locking the door on the outside, put the key in his 
pocket, and so made his way out of the house. Here, however, was another 
difficulty: the Dragon Volant shut its doors and made all fast at twelve 
o'clock; after that hour no one could leave the house, except by obtaining 
the key and letting himself out, and of necessity leaving the door 
unsecured, or else by collusion and aid of some person in the house. 

  "Now it happened that, some time after the doors were secured, at half-
past twelve, a servant who had not been apprised of his order to be left 
undisturbed, seeing a light shine through the key-hole, knocked at the door 
to inquire whether the poet wanted anything. He was very little obliged to 
his disturber, and dismissed him with a renewed charge that he was not to be 
interrupted again during the night. This incident established the fact that 
he was in the house after the doors had been locked and barred. The inn-
keeper himself kept the keys, and swore that he found them hung on the wall 
above his head, in his bed, in their usual place, in the morning; and that 
nobody could have taken them away without awakening him. That was all we 
could discover. The Count de St Alyre, to whom this house belongs, was very 
active and very much chagrined. 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 
he is 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 all the 
secrecy and expedition in his power. All that we know for certain is that, 
having occupied the room in which you sleep, he vanished, nobody ever knew 
how, and never was heard of since." 

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

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

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

  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 de la 
Carque. The moonlight was broken by clouds, and the view of the park in this 
desultory light acquired a melancholy and fantastic character. 

  The strange anecdotes recounted of the room in which I stood by Monsieur 
Carmaignac returned vaguely upon my mind, drowning in sudden shadows the 
gaiety of the more frivolous stories with which he had followed them. I 
looked round me on the room that lay in ominous gloom, with an almost 
disagreeable sensation. I took my pistols now with an undefined apprehension 
that they might be really needed before my return to-night. This feeling, be 
it understood, in no wise chilled my ardour. Never had my 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 at 
which the little churchyard lay. It was about a mile away. I did not wish to 
reach it earlier than necessary. 

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

  Here, at this haunted spot, I paused and listened. The place was utterly 
silent. A thick cloud had darkened the moon, so that I could distinguish 
little more than the outlines of near objects, and that vaguely enough; and 
sometimes, as it were, floating in black fog, the white surface of a 
tombstone 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 six feet 
high, in form like a miniature poplar, with the darker foliage of the yew. I 
do not know the name of the plant, but I have often seen it in such funereal 
places. 

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

  The moon now began to escape from under the skirt of the cloud that had 
hid her face for so long; and, as the light gradually improved, the tree on 
which I had been lazily staring began to take a new shape. It was no longer 
a tree, but a man standing motionless. Brighter and brighter grew the 
moonlight, clearer and clearer the image became, and at last stood out 
perfectly distinctly. It was Colonel Gaillarde. Luckily, he was not looking 
toward me. I could only see him in profile; but there was no mistaking the 
white moustache, the farouche visage, and the gaunt six-foot stature. There 
he was, his shoulder toward me, listening and watching, plainly, for some 
signal or person expected, straight in front of him. 

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

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

  I thought I saw a hat above a jagged piece of ruined wall, and then a 
second -- 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 I lay 
along the grass, peeping over a grave, as a skirmisher might observing the 
enemy. One after the other, the figures emerged full into view as they 
mounted the stile at the roadside. The Colonel, who was last, stood on the 
wall for awhile, looking about him, and then jumped down on the road. I 
heard their steps and talk as they moved away together, with their backs 
toward me, in the direction which led them farther and farther from the 
Dragon Volant. 

  I waited until these sounds were quite lost in distance before I entered 
the park. I followed the instructions I had received from the Countess de St 
Alyre, and made my way among brushwood and thickets to the point nearest the 
ruinous temple, and crossed the short intervening space of open ground 
rapidly. 

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

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

  I reached the steps; I was among its worn marble shafts. She was not 
there, nor in the inner sanctuary, the arched windows of which were screened 
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 I 
heard the crackle of withered sticks trod upon, and, looking in the 
direction, I saw a figure approaching among the trees, wrapped in a mantle. 

  I advanced eagerly. It was the Countess. She did not speak, but gave me 
her hand, and I led her to the scene of our last interview. She repressed 
the ardour of my impassioned greeting with a gentle but peremptory firmness. 
She removed her hood, shook back her beautiful hair, and, gazing on me with 
sad and glowing eyes, sighed deeply. Some awful thought seemed to weigh upon 
her, 

  "Richard, I must speak plainly. The crisis of my life has come. I am sure 
you would defend me. I think you pity me; perhaps you even love me." 

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

  "Listen, dear friend, and then say whether you can aid me. How madly I am 
trusting you; and yet my heart tells me how wisely! To meet you here as I do 
-- what insanity it seems! How poorly you must think of me! But when you 
know all, you will judge me fairly. Without your aid I cannot accomplish my 
purpose. That purpose unaccomplished, I must die. I am chained to a man whom 
I despise -- whom I abhor. I have resolved to fly. I have jewels, 
principally diamonds, for which I am offered thirty thousand pounds of your 
English money. They are my separate property by my marriage settlement; I 
will take them with me. You are a judge, no doubt, of jewels. I was counting 
mine when the hour came, and brought this in my hand to show you. Look." 

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

  "Yes," she said, "I shall part with them all. I will turn them into money 
and break, for ever, 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 love me; you shall share all 
this with me. We will fly together to Switzerland; we will evade pursuit; in 
powerful friends will intervene and arrange a separation, and shall, at 
length, be happy and reward my hero." 

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

  "To-morrow night," she said, "my husband will attend the remains of his 
cousin, 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, at nine 
o'clock." 

  I promised punctual obedience. 

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

  I assented. 

  "I placed it there, that, to-morrow night, when it comes, you may 
recognize it. So soon as that rose-coloured light appears at that window, it 
will be a signal to you that the funeral has left the château, and that you 
may approach safely. Come, then, to that window; I will open it and admit 
you. Five minutes after a travelling-carriage, with four horses, shall stand 
ready in the porte-cochère. I will place my diamonds in your hands; and so 
soon as we enter the carriage our flight commences. We shall have at least 
five hours' start; and with energy, stratagem, and resource, I fear nothing. 
Are you ready to undertake all this for my sake?" 

  Again I vowed myself her slave. 

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

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

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

  On this there followed a romantic colloquy, all poetry and passion, such 
as I should in vain endeavour to reproduce. Then came a very special 
instruction. 

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

  It was a double key -- a long, slender stem, with a key at each end -- one 
about 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 to-morrow night. An interruption would 
murder all my hopes. I have learned that you occupy the haunted room in the 
Dragon Volant. It is the very room I would have wished you in. I will tell 
you why -- there is a story of a man who, having shut himself up in that 
room one night, disappeared before morning. The truth is, he wanted, I 
believe, to escape from creditors; and the host of the Dragon Volant at that 
time, being a rogue, aided him in absconding. My husband investigated the 
matter, and discovered how his escape was made. It was by means of this key. 
Here is a memorandum and a plan describing how they are to be applied. I 
have taken them from the Count's escritoire. And now, once more I must leave 
to your ingenuity how to mystify 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 many months before you can revisit Paris, or disclose our place of 
residence to anyone: and our passports-arrange all that; in what names, and 
whither, you please. And now, dear Richard" (she leaned her arm fondly on my 
shoulder, and looked with ineffable passion in my eyes, with her other hand 
clasped in mine), "my very life is in your hands; I have staked all on your 
fidelity." 

  As she spoke the last word, she, on a sudden, grew deadly pale, and 
gasped, "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 clustering mass 
of ivy so dense that hardly a gleam of light came through the leaves. 

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

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

  I stood, with my finger on the trigger, determined to shoot him dead if he 
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 or qualm about 
it. When once we engage in secret and guilty practices we are 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 us 
march." And, much to my relief, the gallant Colonel turned on his heel and 
marched through the trees, with his back toward the château, striding over 
the grass, as I quickly saw, to the park wall, which they crossed 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 told her 
that I would prevent the return of the mad Colonel; and upon that point, at 
least, that she need fear nothing. She quickly recovered, again bade me a 
fond and lingering good-night, and left me, gazing after her, with the key 
in my hand, and such a phantasmagoria floating in my brain as amounted very 
nearly to madness. 

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

  I have often thanked heaven for its mercy in conducting me through the 
labyrinths 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 Dragon 
Volant. I had undertaken an adventure with a vengeance! And by way of 
prelude, 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 a 
ruffian 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-door picturesque. 

  I could not think very clearly just now; events were succeeding one 
another so rapidly, and I, involved in the action of a drama so extravagant 
and guilty, hardly knew myself or believed my own story, as I slowly paced 
towards the still open door of the Flying Dragon. No sign of 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 looked into the public room. It 
was deserted. The clock struck twelve, and I heard the servant barring the 
great door. I took my candle. The lights in this rural hostelry were by this 
time out, and the house had the air of one that had settled to slumber for 
many hours. The cold moonlight streamed in at the window on the landing as I 
ascended the broad staircase; and I paused for a moment to look over the 
wooded grounds to the 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 a signal 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 old woman 
with the longest face I ever saw; she had what used to be termed a high-
cauld-cap on, the white border of which contrasted with her brown and yellow 
skin, and made her wrinkled face more ugly. She raised her curved shoulders, 
and looked up in my face, with eyes unnaturally black and 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 her 
tremulous fingers. 

  "Excuse an old woman, Monsieur," she said; "but what on earth can a young 
English milord, with all Paris at his feet, find to amuse him in the Dragon 
Volant?" 

  Had I been at the age of fairy tales, and in daily intercourse with the 
delightful Countess d'Aulnois, I should have seen in this withered 
apparition, the genius loci, the malignant fairy, at the stamp of whose foot 
the ill-fated tenants of this very room had, from time to time, vanished. I 
was past that, however; but the old woman's dark eyes were fixed on mine 
with a steady meaning that plainly told me that my secret was known. I was 
embarrassed and alarmed; I never thought of asking her what business that 
was of hers. 

  "These old eyes saw you in the park of the château to-night." 

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

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

  She lifted her disengaged hand, as she looked at me with intense horror in 
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 honour of an ancient 
family, whom I served in their happier days, when to be noble was to be 
honoured. But my words are thrown away, Monsieur; you are insolent. I will 
keep my secret, and you, yours; that is all. You will soon find it hard 
enough to divulge it." 

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

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

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

  Peremptorily I dismissed these harassing and frightful doubts. I secured 
my 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 and notes on 
which I was to rely for full instructions as to how to use the key. 

  When I had studied this for awhile I made my investigation. The angle of 
the room at the right side of the window was cut off by an oblique turn in 
the wainscot. I examined this carefully, and, on pressure, a small bit 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 like discovery. The small end of 
the key fitted this, as it had the upper key-hole; and now, with two or 
three hard jerks at the key, a door in the panel opened, showing a strip of 
the bare wall and a narrow, arched doorway, piercing the thickness of the 
wall; and within which I saw a screw 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 the damp 
smell of the old masonry hung in this atmosphere. My candle faintly lighted 
the bare stone wall that enclosed the stair, the foot of which I could not 
see. Down I went, and a few turns brought me to the stone floor. Here was 
another door, of the simple, old, oak kind, deep sunk in the thickness of 
the wall. The large end of the key fitted this. The lock was stiff; I set 
the candle down upon the stair, and applied both hands; it turned with 
difficulty and, as it revolved, uttered a shriek that alarmed me for my 
secret. 

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

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

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

  Looking back upon the old inn I discovered that the stair I descended was 
enclosed in one of those slender turrets that decorate such buildings. It 
was placed at that angle which corresponded with the part of the panelling 
of my room indicated in the plan I had been studying. 

  Thoroughly satisfied with my experiment I made my way back to the door 
with some little difficulty, remounted to my room, locked my secret door 
again; kissed the mysterious key that her hand had pressed that night, and 
placed it under my pillow, upon which, very soon after, my giddy head 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. As soon 
as I could, without exciting remark, I saw my host. I told him that I was 
going into town that night, and thence to ----, where I had to see some 
people on business, and requested him to mention my being there to any 
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 my room 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 was to 
reduce my balance, nearly thirty thousand pounds, to a shape in which it 
would be not only easily portable, but available, wherever I might go, 
without involving correspondence, or any other incident which would disclose 
my place of residence for the time being. All these points were as nearly 
provided for as, they could be. I need not trouble you about my arrangements 
for passports. It is enough to say that the point I selected for our flight 
was, in the spirit of romance, one of the most beautiful and sequestered 
nooks in Switzerland. 

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

  I had not yet seen the cathedral of Notre Dame, and thither I drove. I 
spent an hour or more there; and then to the Conciergerie, the Palais de 
Justice, and the beautiful Sainte Chapelle. Still there remained some time 
to get rid of, and I strolled into the narrow streets adjoining the 
cathedral. I recollect seeing, in one of them, an old house with a mural 
inscription stating that it had been the residence of Canon Fulbert, the 
uncle of Abelard's Eloise. I don't know whether these curious old streets, 
in which I observed fragments of ancient Gothic churches fitted up as 
warehouses, are still extant. I lighted, among other dingy and eccentric 
shops, upon one that seemed that of a broker of all sorts of old 
decorations, armour, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it was dark, 
dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a piece of inlaid armour, 
and allowed me to poke about his shop, and examine the curious things 
accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradually I made my way to the 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 I reached this 
window, I turned about, and in a recess, standing at right angles with the 
side wall of the shop, was a large mirror in an old-fashioned dingy frame. 
Reflected in this I saw what in old houses I have heard termed an "alcove," 
in which, among lumber and various dusty articles hanging on the wall, there 
stood a table, at which three persons were seated, as it seemed to me, in 
earnest conversation. Two of these persons I instantly recognized; one was 
Colonel Gaillarde, the other was the Marquis d'Harmonville. The third, who 
was fiddling with a pen, was a lean, pale man, pitted with the small-pox, 
with lank black hair, 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 by his two companions. For a moment I hesitated what to do. But it 
was plain that I was not recognized, as indeed I could hardly have been, the 
light from the window being behind me, and the portion of the shop 
immediately before me being very dark indeed. 

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

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

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

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

  The innkeeper met me in the hall, to ask whether I should want a vehicle 
to Paris? I was prepared for this question, and instantly answered that I 
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 shall call 
you if I should want anything; in the meantime, here is the key to my room; 
I shall be writing some notes, so don't allow anyone to disturb me for at 
least half an hour. At the end of that time you will probably find that I 
have left this for Versailles; and should you not find me in the room, you 
may take that for granted; and you take charge of everything, and lock the 
door, you understand?" 

  St Clair took his leave, wishing me all happiness, and no doubt promising 
himself some little amusement with my money. With my candle in my hand, I 
hastened upstairs. It wanted now but five minutes to the appointed time. I 
do not think there is anything of the coward in my nature; but I confess, as 
the crisis approached, I felt something of the suspense 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 each 
pocket. I now applied my key to the secret locks; drew the wainscot door a 
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 no one 
was approaching, and then crossed the floor of my room swiftly, entered the 
secret door, and closed the spring lock after me. I was upon the screw-stair 
in total darkness, the key in my fingers. Thus far the undertaking was 
successful. 

  

CHAPTER XXII

RAPTURE
DOWN the screw-stair I went in utter darkness; and having reached the stone 
floor I discerned the door and groped out the key-hole. With more caution, 
and less noise than upon the night before, I opened the door and stepped out 
into the thick brushwood. It was almost as dark in this jungle. 

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

  At length, in the darkened air, about fifty yards away, the shafts of the 
marble temple rose like phantoms before me, seen through the trunks of the 
old trees. Everything favoured my enterprise. I had effectually mystified my 
servant and the people of the Dragon Volant, and so dark was the night, that 
even had I alarmed the suspicions of all the tenants of the inn, I might 
safely defy their united curiosity, though posted at every window of the 
house. 

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

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

  Suppose I were to disappear finally, like those other men whose stories I 
had listened to! Had I not been at all the pains that mortal could to 
obliterate every trace of my real proceedings, and to mislead everyone to 
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 of double-
barrelled pistols, four lives in my hands? What could possibly happen? The 
Count -- except for the sake of my dulcinea, what was it to me whether the 
old coward whom I had seen, in an ague of terror before the brawling 
Colonel, interposed or not? I was assuming the worst that could happen. But 
with an ally so clever and courageous as my beautiful Countess, could any 
such misadventure befall? Bah! I laughed at all such fancies. 

  As I thus communed with myself, the signal light sprang up. He rose-
coloured light, couleur de rose, emblem of sanguine hope and the dawn of a 
happy day. 

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

  A shadow from within fell upon the blind; it was drawn aside, and as I 
ascended 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 of such a 
creature. When the first tumultuous greeting was over, she made me sit 
beside her on a sofa. There we talked for a minute or two. She told me that 
the Count had gone, and was by that time more than a mile on his way, with 
the funeral, to Père la Chaise. Here were her diamonds. She exhibited, 
hastily, an open casket containing a profusion of the largest brilliants. 

  "What is this?" she asked. 

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

  "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 to 
provide for both, for a time at least. It would have made me happier even 
than I am." 

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

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

  "Yes, certainly; I received it to-day," I answered, perhaps showing a 
little surprise in my face. "I counted it, of course, on drawing it from my 
bankers." 

  "It makes me feel a little nervous, travelling with so much money; but 
these 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 are ready to 
go, and with it manage to conceal these boxes. I should not like the drivers 
to suspect that we were conveying such a treasure. I must ask you now to 
close the curtains of that window, and bar the shutters." 

  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 a 
whispered conversation for a minute followed. 

  "My trusty maid, who is coming with us. She says we cannot safely go 
sooner 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't follow 
-- 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 last 
few 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 that dark 
look in her eyes? Why had her very voice become changed? Had anything gone 
suddenly wrong? Did some danger threaten? 

  This doubt, however, speedily quieted itself. If there had been anything 
of the kind, she would, of course, have told me. It was only natural that, 
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 my situation 
absolute quietude is next to impossible. I moved restlessly about the room. 
It was a small one. There was a door at the other end. I opened it, rashly 
enough. I listened, it was perfectly silent. I was in an excited, eager 
state, and every faculty engrossed about what was coming, and in so far 
detached from the immediate present. I can't account, in any other way, for 
my having done so many foolish things that night, for I was, naturally, by 
no means deficient in cunning. About the most stupid of those was, that 
instead of immediately closing that door, which I never ought to have 
opened, I actually took a candle and 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, and some 
score of bricks. Beyond these, on a narrow table, lay an object which I 
could hardly believe I saw aright. 

  I approached and drew from it a sheet which had very slightly disguised 
its shape. There was no mistake about it. It was a coffin; and on the lid 
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 not 
yet 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 the case. 

  I drew back from this melancholy room, and closed the door. Her distrust 
of me was the worst rashness she could have committed. There is nothing more 
dangerous than misapplied caution. In entire ignorance of the fact I had 
entered the room, and there I might have lighted upon some of the very 
persons it was our special anxiety that I should avoid. 

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

  "Have you seen anything -- anything to disturb you, dear Richard? Have you 
been 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 had departed a 
quarter of an hour before I lighted the coloured lamp, and prepared to 
receive you. The body did not arrive till eight or ten minutes after he had 
set out. He was afraid lest the people at Père la Chaise should suppose that 
the funeral was postponed. He knew that the remains of poor Pierre would 
certainly reach this to-night, although an unexpected delay has occurred; 
and there are reasons why he wishes the funeral completed before to-morrow. 
The hearse with the body must leave this in ten minutes. So soon as it is 
gone, we shall be free to set out upon our wild and happy journey. The 
horses are to the carriage in the porte-cochère. As for this funeste horror" 
(she shuddered very prettily), "let us think of it no more." 

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

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

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

  At length, on a sudden, she raised her hand, as if to prevent my stirring, 
her eyes fixed on me and her ear toward the door of the room in which the 
coffin was placed, and remained breathless in that attitude for a few 
moments. Then, with a little nod towards me, she moved on tip-toe to the 
door, and listened, extending her hand backward as if to warn me against 
advancing; and, after a little time, she returned, still on tip-toe, and 
whispered to me, "They are removing the coffin -- come with me." 

  I accompanied her into the room from which her maid, as she told me, had 
spoken to her. Coffee and some old china cups, which appeared to me quite 
beautiful, stood on a silver tray; and some liqueur glasses, with a 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 own way; 
I shall not think myself forgiven by my darling if he refuses to indulge me 
in anything." 

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I kissed her hand, I kissed her lips, I gazed in her beautiful eyes, and 
kissed 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, if you 
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 our 
journey; and, as I spoke, suddenly an odd sensation overcame me. It was not 
in the slightest degree like faintness. I can find no phrase to describe it, 
but a sudden constraint of the brain; it was as if the membrane in which it 
lies, if there be such a thing, contracted, and became inflexible. 

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

  Great and loud was the lady's agony. She seemed to have lost all sense of 
fear. She called me by my name, shook me by the shoulder, raised my arm and 
let it fall, all the time imploring of me, in distracting sentences, to make 
the slightest sign of life, and vowing that if I did not, she would make 
away with herself. 

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

  

CHAPTER XXIV

HOPE
SHE had scarcely set down my heavy box, which she seemed to have 
considerable difficulty in raising on the table, when the door of the room 
in which I had seen the coffin, opened, and a sinister and unexpected 
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 la Chaise. He 
stood before me for a moment, with the frame of the doorway and a background 
of darkness enclosing him like a portrait. His slight, mean figure was 
draped in the deepest mourning. He had a pair of black gloves in his hand, 
and his hat with crape round it. 

  When he was not speaking his face showed signs of agitation; his mouth was 
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 should not 
have left that door open." 

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "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 groped 
backward 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 to the box, 
which lay in its leather case on the table. 

  "0h! Let us see -- let us count -- let us see," he said, as he was 
unbuckling the straps with his tremulous fingers. "We must count them -- we 
must see to it. I have pencil and pocket-book -- but -- where's the key? See 
this cursed lock! My ----! What is it? Where's the key?" 

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

  "I have not got it; how could I? It is in his pocket, of course," said the 
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 with the 
Marquis to Paris. This wretch, I knew, was about to rob me. The whole drama, 
and the Countess's rôle in it, I could not yet comprehend. I could not be 
sure -- so much more presence of mind and histrionic resource have women 
than fall to the lot of our clumsy sex -- whether the return of the Count 
was not, in truth, a surprise to her; and this scrutiny of the contents of 
my strong box, an extempore undertaking of the Count's. But it was clearing 
more and more every moment: and I was destined, very soon, to comprehend 
minutely my appalling situation. 

  I had not the power of turning my eyes this way or that, the smallest 
fraction of a hair's breadth. But let anyone, placed as I was at the end of 
a room, ascertain for himself by experiment how wide is the field of sight, 
without the slightest alteration in the line of vision, he will find that it 
takes in the entire breadth of a large room, and that up to a very short 
distance before him; and imperfectly, by a refraction, I believe, in the eye 
itself, to a point very near indeed. Next to nothing that 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 its 
contents 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. Then came the notes. 

  "Ten thousand francs. Write. Then thousand francs again. Is it written? 
Another ten thousand francs: is it down? Smaller notes would have been 
better. They should have been smaller. These are horribly embarrassing. Bolt 
that door again; Planard would become unreasonable if he 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 ten thousand francs -- another -- 
another." And so on, till my treasure was counted out before my face, while 
I saw and heard all that passed with the sharpest distinctness, and my 
mental perceptions were horribly vivid. But in all other respects I was 
dead. 

  He had replaced in the box every note and rouleau as he counted it, and 
now, having ascertained the sum total, he locked it, replaced it very 
methodically in its cover, opened a buffet in the wainscoting, and, having 
placed the Countess' jewel-ease and my strong box in it, he locked it; and 
immediately on completing these arrangements he began to complain, with 
fresh acrimony and maledictions of Planard's delay. 

  He unbolted the door, looked in the dark room beyond, and listened. He 
closed the door again and returned. The old man was in a fever of suspense. 

  "I have kept ten thousand francs for Planard," said the Count, touching 
his waistcoat pocket. 

  "Will that satisfy him?" asked the lady. 

  "Why -- curse him!" screamed the Count. "Has he no conscience? I'll swear 
to him it's half the entire thing." 

  He and the lady again came and looked at me anxiously for a while, in 
silence; 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 her profile was toward me 
-- and strangely changed, dark and witch-like it looked. My last hope died 
as I beheld that jaded face from which the mask had dropped. I was certain 
that they intended to crown their robbery by murder. Why did they not 
despatch me at once? What object could there be in postponing the 
catastrophe which would expedite their own safety. I cannot recall, even to 
myself, adequately the horrors unutterable that I underwent. You must 
suppose a real night-mare -- I mean a night-mare in which the objects and 
the danger are real, and the spell of corporal death appears to be 
protractable at the pleasure of the persons who preside at your unearthly 
torments. I could have no doubt as to the cause of the state in which I was. 

  In this agony, to which I could not give the slightest expression, I saw 
the door of the room where the coffin had been, open slowly, and the Marquis 
d'Harmonville entered the room. 

  

CHAPTER XXV

DESPAIR
A MOMENT'S hope, hope violent and fluctuating, hope that was nearly torture, 
and then came a dialogue, and with it the terrors of despair. 

  "Thank Heaven, Planard, you have come at last," said the Count, taking him 
with both hands by the arm, and clinging to it and drawing him toward me. 
"See, look at him. It has all gone sweetly, sweetly, sweetly up to this. 
Shall I hold the candle for you?" 

  My friend d'Harmonville, Planard, whatever he was, came to me, pulling of 
his gloves, which he popped into his pocket. 

  "The candle, a little this way," he said, and stooping over me he looked 
earnestly 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 stunted down 
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 a long 
course of guilt to subjugate nature completely, and prevent those exterior 
signs of agitation that outlive all good. 

  The doctor, however, was treating me as coolly as he might a subject which 
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 his 
fingers to the pulse. 

  "That action suspended," he said to himself. 

  Then again he placed something, that for the moment I saw it looked like a 
piece of gold-beater's leaf, to my lips, holding his head so far that his 
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 if for a very 
far-of 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 six 
hours and a half-that is ample. The experiment I tried in the carriage was 
only thirty drops, and showed a highly sensitive brain. It would not do 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 foreign matter, 
some of it poisonous, would be found in the stomach, don't you see? 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 that Cupid's 
foot." 

  "It will last, then, probably for seven hours. He will recover then; the 
evaporation will be complete, and not one particle of the fluid will remain 
in the stomach." 

  It was reassuring, at all events, to hear that there was no intention to 
murder me. No one who has not tried it knows the terror of the approach of 
death, when the mind is clear, the instincts of life unimpaired, and no 
excitement to disturb the appreciation of that entirely new horror. 

  The nature and purpose of this tenderness was very, very peculiar, and as 
yet I had not a suspicion of it. 

  "You leave France, I suppose?" said the ex-Marquis. 

  "Yes, certainly, to-morrow," 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 and night-cap -- 
you understand -- here?" 

  "All ready," said the Count. 

  "Now, Madame," said the doctor, turning to the lady, and making her, in 
spite 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 treacherous 
coffee, and I saw her no more. The Count took a candle and passed through 
the door at the further end of the room, returning with a roll of linen in 
his hand. He bolted first one door then the other. 

  They now, in silence, proceeded to undress me rapidly. They were not many 
minutes in accomplishing this. 

  What the doctor had termed my night-shirt, a long garment which reached 
below my feet, was now on, and a cap, that resembled a female nightcap more 
than anything I had ever seen upon a male head, was fitted upon mine, 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 their plans 
were very different. The Count and Planard now went, together, into the room 
that lay straight before me. I heard them talking low, and a sound of 
shuffling feet; then a long rumble; it suddenly stopped; it recommenced; it 
continued; side by side they came in at the door, their backs toward me. 
They were dragging something along the floor that made a continued boom and 
rumble, but they interposed between me and it, so that I could not see it 
until they had dragged it almost beside me; and then, merciful heaven! I saw 
it plainly enough. It was the coffin I had seen in the next room. It lay now 
flat on the floor, its edge against the 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 hours and a 
quarter. Now, come; I'll lift him upright, so as to place his feet in their 
proper berth, and you must keep them together and draw the white shirt well 
down over them." 

  In another moment I was placed, as he described, sustained in Planard's 
arms, standing at the foot of the coffin, and so lowered backward, 
gradually, till I lay my length in it. Then the man, whom he called Planard, 
stretched my arms by my sides, and carefully arranged the frills at my 
breast and the folds of the shroud, and after that, taking his stand at the 
foot of the coffin made a survey which seemed to satisfy him. 

  The Count, who was very methodical, took my clothes, which had just been 
removed, folded them rapidly together and locked them up, as I afterwards 
heard, in one of the three presses which opened by doors in the panel. 

  I now understood their frightful plan. This coffin had been prepared for 
me; the funeral of St Amand was a sham to mislead inquiry; I had myself 
given the order at Père la Chaise, signed it, and paid the fees for the 
interment of the fictitious Pierre de St Amand, whose place I was to take, 
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 this catalepsy, after I had 
been for hours in the grave, there to perish by a death the most horrible 
that imagination can conceive. 

  If, hereafter, by any caprice of curiosity or suspicion, the coffin should 
be exhumed, and the body it enclosed examined, no chemistry could detect a 
trace of poison, nor the most cautious examination the slightest mark of 
violence. 

  I had myself been at the utmost pains to mystify inquiry, should my 
disappearance excite surmises, and had even written to my few correspondents 
in England to tell them that they were not to look for a letter from me for 
three weeks at least. 

  In the moment of my guilty elation death had caught me, and there was no 
escape. I tried to pray to God in my unearthly panic, but only thoughts of 
terror, judgment, and eternal anguish crossed the distraction of my 
immediate doom. 

  I must not try to recall what is indeed indescribable- the multiform 
horrors of my own thoughts. I will relate, simply, what befell, every detail 
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 good enough 
to take hold of the lower part while I take this end." I was not left long 
to conjecture what was coming, for in a few seconds more something slid 
across, a few inches above my face, and entirely excluded the light, and 
muffled sound, so that nothing that was not very distinct reached my ears 
henceforward; but very distinctly came the working of a turnscrew, and the 
crunching home of screws in succession. Than these vulgar sounds, no doom 
spoken in thunder could have been more tremendous. 

  The rest I must relate, not as it then reached my ears, which was too 
imperfectly and interruptedly to supply a connected narrative, but as it was 
afterwards told me by other people. 

  The coffin-lid being screwed down, the two gentlemen arranged the room and 
adjusted the coffin so that it lay perfectly straight along the boards, the 
Count being specially anxious that there should be no appearance of hurry or 
disorder in the room, which might have suggested remark and conjecture. 

  When this was done, Doctor Planard said he would go to the hall to summon 
the men who were to carry the coffin out and place it in the hearse. The 
Count pulled on his black gloves, and held his white handkerchief in his 
hand, a very impressive chief-mourner. He stood a little behind the head of 
the coffin, awaiting the arrival of the persons who accompanied Planard, and 
whose fast steps he soon heard approaching. 

  Planard came first. He entered the room through the apartment in which the 
coffin had been originally placed. His manner was changed; there was 
something of a swagger in it. 

  "Monsieur le Comte," he said, as he strode through the door, followed by 
half-a-dozen persons, "I am sorry to have to announce to you a most 
unseasonable interruption. Here is Monsieur Carmaignac, a gentleman holding 
an office in the police department, who says that information to the effect 
that large quantities of smuggled English and other goods have been 
distributed in this neighbourhood, and that a portion of them is concealed 
in your house. I have ventured to assure him, of my own knowledge, that 
nothing can be more false than that information, and that you would be only 
too happy to throw open for his inspection, at a moment's notice, every 
room, closet, and cupboard in your house." 

  "Most assuredly," exclaimed the Count, with a stout voice, but a very 
white face. "Thank you, my good friend, for having anticipated me. I will 
place my house and keys at his disposal, for the purpose of his scrutiny, so 
soon as he is good enough to inform me of what specific contraband goods he 
comes in search." 

  "The Count de St Alyre will pardon me," answered Carmaignac, a little 
drily. "I am forbidden by my instructions to make that disclosure; and that 
I am instructed to make a general search, this warrant will sufficiently 
apprise Monsieur le Comte." 

  "Monsieur Carmaignac, may I hope," interposed Planard, that you will 
permit the Count de St Alyre to attend the funeral of his kinsman, who lies 
here, as you see --" (he pointed to the plate upon the coffin) -- "and to 
convey whom to Père la Chaise, a hearse waits at this moment at the door." 

  "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 not suppose 
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, for instance, what that coffin may 
contain." 

  "The body of my kinsman, Monsieur Pierre de St Amand," answered the Count, 
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 that 
gentleman. 

  "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 for 
that." 

  "The things I am in search of," said Monsieur Carmaignac, "would fit in a 
narrow compass -- servants are so ingenious sometimes. Let us raise the 
lid." 

  "Pardon me, Monsieur," said the Count, peremptorily, advancing to the side 
of the coffin and extending his arm across it, "I cannot permit that 
indignity -- that desecration." 

  "There shall be none, sir -- simply the raising of the lid; you shall 
remain in the room. If it should prove as we all hope, you shall have the 
pleasure of one other look, really the last, upon your beloved kinsman." 

  "But, sir, I can't." 

  "But, Monsieur, I must." 

  "But, besides, the thing, the turnscrew, broke when the last screw was 
turned; and I give you my sacred honour there is nothing but the body in 
this coffin." 

  "Of course, Monsieur le Comte believes all that; but he does not know so 
well as I the legerdemain in use among servants, who are accustomed to 
smuggling. Here, Philippe, you must take off the lid of that coffin." 

  The Count protested; but Philippe -- a man with a bald head and a smirched 
face, looking like a working blacksmith -- placed on the floor a leather bag 
of tools, from which, having looked at the coffin, and picked with his nail 
at the screw-heads, he selected a turnscrew and, with a few deft twirls at 
each of the screws, they stood up like little rows of mushrooms, and the lid 
was raised. I saw the light, of which I thought I had seen my last, once 
more; but the axis of vision remained fixed. As I was reduced to the 
cataleptic state in a position nearly perpendicular, I continued looking 
straight before me, and thus my gaze was now fixed upon the ceiling. I saw 
the face of Carmaignac leaning over me with a curious frown. It seemed to me 
that there was no recognition in his eyes. Oh, Heaven! that I could have 
uttered were it but one cry! I saw the dark, mean mask of the little Count 
staring down at me from the other side; the face of the pseudo-Marquis also 
peering at me, but not so full in the line of vision; there were other faces 
also. 

  "I see, I see," said Carmaignac, withdrawing. "Nothing of the kind there." 

  "You will be good enough to direct your man to re-adjust the lid of the 
coffin, and to fix the screws," said the Count, taking courage; "and -- and 
-- really the funeral must proceed. It is not fair to the people, who have 
but moderate fees for night-work, to keep them hour after 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; and two or 
three more grave and stalwart specimens of the same force were also in the 
room. The Count was very uncomfortably excited; it was growing 
insupportable. 

  "As this gentleman makes a difficulty about my attending the obsequies of 
my kinsman, I will ask you, Planard, to accompany the funeral in my stead." 

  "In a few minutes;" answered the incorrigible Carmaignac. "I must first 
trouble you for the key that opens that press." 

  He pointed direct at the press in which the clothes had just been locked 
up. 

  "I -- I have no objection," said the Count -- "none, of course; only they 
have 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 clothes are 
these?" inquired Carmaignac, when, the press having been opened, he took 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 of that 
press. A roguish servant, named Lablais, whom I dismissed about a year 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 marked pocket-handkerchief -- 
'R.B.' upon it. He must have stolen them from a person named Beckett -- R. 
Beckett. 'Mr Beckett, Berkeley Square,' the card says; and, my faith! here's 
a watch and a bunch of seals; one of them with the initials 'R.B.' upon it. 
That servant, Lablais, must have been a consummate rogue!" 

  "So he was; you are right, Sir." 

  "It strikes me that he possibly stole these clothes," cotinued Carmaignac, 
"from the man in the coffin, who, in that case, would be Monsieur Beckett, 
and not Monsieur de St Amand. For wonderful to relate, Monsieur, the watch 
is still going! The man in the coffin, I believe, is not dead, but simply 
drugged. And for having robbed and intended 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 discordant 
voice break quaveringly into sudden vehemence and volubility; now croaking -
- now shrieking as he oscillated between protests, threats, and impious 
appeals to the God who will "judge the secrets of men!" And thus lying and 
raving, he was removed from the room, and placed in the same coach with his 
beautiful and abandoned accomplice, already arrested; and, with two 
gendarmes sitting beside them, they were immediate driving at a rapid pace 
towards the Conciergerie. 

  There were now added to the general chorus two voices, very different in 
quality; one was that of the gasconading Colonel Gaillarde, who had with 
difficulty been kept in the background up to this; the other was that of my 
jolly friend Whistlewick, who had come to identify me. 

  I shall tell you, just now, how this project against my property and life, 
so ingenious and monstrous, was exploded. I must first say a word about 
myself. I was placed in a hot bath, under the direction of Planard, as 
consummate a villain as any of the gang, but now thoroughly in 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 in about three hours; I should 
otherwise, probably, have continued under the spell for nearly seven. 

  The practices of these nefarious conspirators had been carried on with 
consummate skill and secrecy. Their dupes were led, as I was, to be 
themselves auxiliary to the mystery which made their own destruction both 
safe and certain. 

  A search was, of course, instituted. Graves were opened in Père la Chaise. 
The bodies exhumed had lain there too long, and were too much decomposed to 
be recognized. One only was identified. The notice for the burial, in this 
particular case, had been signed, the order given, and the fees paid, by 
Gabriel Gaillarde, who was known to the official clerk, who had to transact 
with him this little funereal business. The very trick that had been 
arranged for me, had been successfully practised 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 a tomb-stone over the grave. Possibly the same 
honour, under my pseudonym, may have been intended for me. 

  The identification was curious. This Gabriel Gaillarde had had a bad fall 
from a runaway horse about five years before his mysterious disappearance. 
He had lost an eye and some teeth in this accident, beside sustaining a 
fracture of the right leg, immediately above the ankle. He had kept the 
injuries to his face as profound a secret as he could. The result was, that 
the glass eye which had done duty for the one 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 the chasms, the 
cast of which, owing to peculiarities in the accident, he happened to have 
preserved. This cast precisely fitted the gold plate found in the mouth of 
the skull. The mark, also, above the ankle, in the bone, where it had re-
united, corresponded exactly with the place where the fracture had knit in 
the limb of Gabriel Gaillarde. 

  The Colonel, his younger brother, had been furious about the disappearance 
of Gabriel, and still more so about that of his money, which he had long 
regarded as his proper keepsake, whenever death should remove his brother 
from the vexations of living. He had suspected for a long time, for certain 
adroitly discovered reasons, that the Count de St Alyre and the beautiful 
lady, his companion, countess, or whatever else she was, had pigeoned him. 
To this suspicion were added some others of a still darker kind; but in 
their first shape, rather the exaggerated reflections of his fury, ready to 
believe anything, than well-defined conjectures. 

  At length an accident had placed the Colonel very nearly upon the right 
scent; a chance, possibly lucky, for himself, had apprised the scoundrel 
Planard that the conspirators -- himself among the number -- were in danger. 
The result was that he made terms for himself, became an informer, and 
concerted with the police this visit made to the Château de la Carque at the 
critical moment when every measure had been completed that was necessary to 
construct a perfect case against his guilty accomplices. 

  I need not describe the minute industry or forethought with which the 
police agents collected all the details necessary to support the case. They 
had brought an able physician, who, even had Planard failed, would have 
supplied the necessary medical evidence. 

  My trip to Paris, you will believe, had not turned out quite so agreeably 
as I had anticipated. I was the principal witness for the prosecution in 
this cause célèbre, with all the agrémens that attend that enviable 
position. Having had an escape, as my friend Whistlewick said, "with a 
squeak" for my life, I innocently fancied that I should have been an object 
of considerable interest to Parisian society; but, a good deal to my 
mortification, I discovered that I was the object of a good-natured but 
contemptuous merriment. I was a balourd, a benêt, un âne, and figured even 
in caricatures. I became 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 even paying 
my friend, the Marquis d'Harmonville, a visit at his hospitable ch´teau. 

  The Marquis escaped scot-free. His accomplice, the Count, was executed. 
The fair Eugenie, under extenuating circumstances -- consisting, so far as I 
could discover of her good looks -- got off for six years' imprisonment. 

  Colonel Gaillarde recovered some of his brother's money, out of the not 
very affluent estate of the Count and soi-disant Countess. This, and the 
execution of the Count, put him in high good humour. So far from insisting 
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 knob of my stick, as 
having been received in an honourable though irregular duel, in which he had 
no disadvantage or unfairness to complain of. 

  I think I have only two additional details to mention. The bricks 
discovered 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 and 
contradictions that might have been excited by the arrival of an empty 
coffin at the château. 

  Secondly, the Countess's magnificent brilliants were examined by a 
lapidary, and pronounced to be worth about five pounds to a tragedy queen 
who happened to be in want of a suite of paste. 

  The Countess had figured some years before as one of the cleverest 
actresses on the minor stage of Paris, where she had been picked up by the 
Count and used as his principal accomplice. 

  She it was who, admirably disguised, had rifled my papers in the carriage 
on my memorable night-journey to Paris. She also had figured as the 
interpreting magician of the palanquin at the ball at Versailles. So far as 
I was affected by that elaborate mystification it was intended to re-animate 
my interest, which, they feared, might flag in the beautiful Countess. It 
had its design and action upon other intended victims also; but of them 
there is, at present, no need to speak. The introduction of a real corpse -- 
procured from a person who supplied the Parisian anatomists -- involved no 
real danger, while it heightened the mystery and kept the prophet alive in 
the gossip of the town and in the thoughts of the noodles with whom he had 
conferred. 

  I divided the remainder of the summer and autumn between Switzerland and 
Italy. 

  As the well-worn phrase goes, I was a sadder if not a wiser man. A great 
deal of the horrible impression left upon my mind was due, of course, to the 
mere action of nerves and brain. But serious feelings of another and deeper 
kind remained. My afterlife was ultimately formed by the shock I had then 
received. Those impressions led me -- but not till after many years -- to 
happier though not less serious thoughts; and I have deep reason to be 
thankful to the all-merciful Ruler of events for an early and terrible 
lesson in the ways of sin.