summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/old/8drag10h.htm
blob: 8c148c33adb4557a90a9b637988f65686af88d56 (plain) 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759
4760
4761
4762
4763
4764
4765
4766
4767
4768
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776
4777
4778
4779
4780
4781
4782
4783
4784
4785
4786
4787
4788
4789
4790
4791
4792
4793
4794
4795
4796
4797
4798
4799
4800
4801
4802
4803
4804
4805
4806
4807
4808
4809
4810
4811
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821
4822
4823
4824
4825
4826
4827
4828
4829
4830
4831
4832
4833
4834
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844
4845
4846
4847
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857
4858
4859
4860
4861
4862
4863
4864
4865
4866
4867
4868
4869
4870
4871
4872
4873
4874
4875
4876
4877
4878
4879
4880
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890
4891
4892
4893
4894
4895
4896
4897
4898
4899
4900
4901
4902
4903
4904
4905
4906
4907
4908
4909
4910
4911
4912
4913
4914
4915
4916
4917
4918
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928
4929
4930
4931
4932
4933
4934
4935
4936
4937
4938
4939
4940
4941
4942
4943
4944
4945
4946
4947
4948
4949
4950
4951
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961
4962
4963
4964
4965
4966
4967
4968
4969
4970
4971
4972
4973
4974
4975
4976
4977
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987
4988
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993
4994
4995
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003
5004
5005
5006
5007
5008
5009
5010
5011
5012
5013
5014
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024
5025
5026
5027
5028
5029
5030
5031
5032
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057
5058
5059
5060
5061
5062
5063
5064
5065
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073
5074
5075
5076
5077
5078
5079
5080
5081
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091
5092
5093
5094
5095
5096
5097
5098
5099
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109
5110
5111
5112
5113
5114
5115
5116
5117
5118
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5132
5133
5134
5135
5136
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146
5147
5148
5149
5150
5151
5152
5153
5154
5155
5156
5157
5158
5159
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167
5168
5169
5170
5171
5172
5173
5174
5175
5176
5177
5178
5179
5180
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188
5189
5190
5191
5192
5193
5194
5195
5196
5197
5198
5199
5200
5201
5202
5203
5204
5205
5206
5207
5208
5209
5210
5211
5212
5213
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223
5224
5225
5226
5227
5228
5229
5230
5231
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241
5242
5243
5244
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252
5253
5254
5255
5256
5257
5258
5259
5260
5261
5262
5263
5264
5265
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273
5274
5275
5276
5277
5278
5279
5280
5281
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291
5292
5293
5294
5295
5296
5297
5298
5299
5300
5301
5302
5303
5304
5305
5306
5307
5308
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313
5314
5315
5316
5317
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327
5328
5329
5330
5331
5332
5333
5334
5335
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344
5345
5346
5347
5348
5349
5350
5351
5352
5353
5354
5355
5356
5357
5358
5359
5360
5361
5362
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369
5370
5371
5372
5373
5374
5375
5376
5377
5378
5379
5380
5381
5382
5383
5384
5385
5386
5387
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395
5396
5397
5398
5399
5400
5401
5402
5403
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411
5412
5413
5414
5415
5416
5417
5418
5419
5420
5421
5422
5423
5424
5425
5426
5427
5428
5429
5430
5431
5432
5433
5434
5435
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445
5446
5447
5448
5449
5450
5451
5452
5453
5454
5455
5456
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466
5467
5468
5469
5470
5471
5472
5473
5474
5475
5476
5477
5478
5479
5480
5481
5482
5483
5484
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500
5501
5502
5503
5504
5505
5506
5507
5508
5509
5510
5511
5512
5513
5514
5515
5516
5517
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527
5528
5529
5530
5531
5532
5533
5534
5535
5536
5537
5538
5539
5540
5541
5542
5543
5544
5545
5546
5547
5548
5549
5550
5551
5552
5553
5554
5555
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567
5568
5569
5570
5571
5572
5573
5574
5575
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583
5584
5585
5586
5587
5588
5589
5590
5591
5592
5593
5594
5595
5596
5597
5598
5599
5600
5601
5602
5603
5604
5605
5606
5607
5608
5609
5610
5611
5612
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620
5621
5622
5623
5624
5625
5626
5627
5628
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638
5639
5640
5641
5642
5643
5644
5645
5646
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654
5655
5656
5657
5658
5659
5660
5661
5662
5663
5664
5665
5666
5667
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675
5676
5677
5678
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686
5687
5688
5689
5690
5691
5692
5693
5694
5695
5696
5697
5698
5699
5700
5701
5702
5703
5704
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712
5713
5714
5715
5716
5717
5718
5719
5720
5721
5722
5723
5724
5725
5726
5727
5728
5729
5730
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738
5739
5740
5741
5742
5743
5744
5745
5746
5747
5748
5749
5750
5751
5752
5753
5754
5755
5756
5757
5758
5759
5760
5761
5762
5763
5764
5765
5766
5767
5768
5769
5770
5771
5772
5773
5774
5775
5776
5777
5778
5779
5780
5781
5782
5783
5784
5785
5786
5787
5788
5789
5790
5791
5792
5793
5794
5795
5796
5797
5798
5799
5800
5801
5802
5803
5804
5805
5806
5807
5808
5809
5810
5811
5812
5813
5814
5815
5816
5817
5818
5819
5820
5821
5822
5823
5824
5825
5826
5827
5828
5829
5830
5831
5832
5833
5834
5835
5836
5837
5838
5839
5840
5841
5842
5843
5844
5845
5846
5847
5848
5849
5850
5851
5852
5853
5854
5855
5856
5857
5858
5859
5860
5861
5862
5863
5864
5865
5866
5867
5868
5869
5870
5871
5872
5873
5874
5875
5876
5877
5878
5879
5880
5881
5882
5883
5884
5885
5886
5887
5888
5889
5890
5891
5892
5893
5894
5895
5896
5897
5898
5899
5900
5901
5902
5903
5904
5905
5906
5907
5908
5909
5910
5911
5912
5913
5914
5915
5916
5917
5918
5919
5920
5921
5922
5923
5924
5925
5926
5927
5928
5929
5930
5931
5932
5933
5934
5935
5936
5937
5938
5939
5940
5941
5942
5943
5944
5945
5946
5947
5948
5949
5950
5951
5952
5953
5954
5955
5956
5957
5958
5959
5960
5961
5962
5963
5964
5965
5966
5967
5968
5969
5970
5971
5972
5973
5974
5975
5976
5977
5978
5979
5980
5981
5982
5983
5984
5985
5986
5987
5988
5989
5990
5991
5992
5993
5994
5995
5996
5997
5998
5999
6000
6001
6002
6003
6004
6005
6006
6007
6008
6009
6010
6011
6012
6013
6014
6015
6016
6017
6018
6019
6020
6021
6022
6023
6024
6025
6026
6027
6028
6029
6030
6031
6032
6033
6034
6035
6036
6037
6038
6039
6040
6041
6042
6043
6044
6045
6046
6047
6048
6049
6050
6051
6052
6053
6054
6055
6056
6057
6058
6059
6060
6061
6062
6063
6064
6065
6066
6067
6068
6069
6070
6071
6072
6073
6074
6075
6076
6077
6078
6079
6080
6081
6082
6083
6084
6085
6086
6087
6088
6089
6090
6091
6092
6093
6094
6095
6096
6097
6098
6099
6100
6101
6102
6103
6104
6105
6106
6107
6108
6109
6110
6111
6112
6113
6114
6115
6116
6117
6118
6119
6120
6121
6122
6123
6124
6125
6126
6127
6128
6129
6130
6131
6132
6133
6134
6135
6136
6137
6138
6139
6140
6141
6142
6143
6144
6145
6146
6147
6148
6149
6150
6151
6152
6153
6154
6155
6156
6157
6158
6159
6160
6161
6162
6163
6164
6165
6166
6167
6168
6169
6170
6171
6172
6173
6174
6175
6176
6177
6178
6179
6180
6181
6182
6183
6184
6185
6186
6187
6188
6189
6190
6191
6192
6193
6194
6195
6196
6197
6198
6199
6200
6201
6202
6203
6204
6205
6206
6207
6208
6209
6210
6211
6212
6213
6214
6215
6216
6217
6218
6219
6220
6221
6222
6223
6224
6225
6226
6227
6228
6229
6230
6231
6232
6233
6234
6235
6236
6237
6238
6239
6240
6241
6242
6243
6244
6245
6246
6247
6248
6249
6250
6251
6252
6253
6254
6255
6256
6257
6258
6259
6260
6261
6262
6263
6264
6265
6266
6267
6268
6269
6270
6271
6272
6273
6274
6275
6276
6277
6278
6279
6280
6281
6282
6283
6284
6285
6286
6287
6288
6289
6290
6291
6292
6293
6294
6295
6296
6297
6298
6299
6300
6301
6302
6303
6304
6305
6306
6307
6308
6309
6310
6311
6312
6313
6314
6315
6316
6317
6318
6319
6320
6321
6322
6323
6324
6325
6326
6327
6328
6329
6330
6331
6332
6333
6334
6335
6336
6337
6338
6339
6340
6341
6342
6343
6344
6345
6346
6347
6348
6349
6350
6351
6352
6353
6354
6355
6356
6357
6358
6359
6360
6361
6362
6363
6364
6365
6366
6367
6368
6369
6370
6371
6372
6373
6374
6375
6376
6377
6378
6379
6380
6381
6382
6383
6384
6385
6386
6387
6388
6389
6390
6391
6392
6393
6394
6395
6396
6397
6398
6399
6400
6401
6402
6403
6404
6405
6406
6407
6408
6409
6410
6411
6412
6413
6414
6415
6416
6417
6418
6419
6420
6421
6422
6423
6424
6425
6426
6427
6428
6429
6430
6431
6432
6433
6434
6435
6436
6437
6438
6439
6440
6441
6442
6443
6444
6445
6446
6447
6448
6449
6450
6451
6452
6453
6454
6455
6456
6457
6458
6459
6460
6461
6462
6463
6464
6465
6466
6467
6468
6469
6470
6471
6472
6473
6474
6475
6476
6477
6478
6479
6480
6481
6482
6483
6484
6485
6486
6487
6488
6489
6490
6491
6492
6493
6494
6495
6496
6497
6498
6499
6500
6501
6502
6503
6504
6505
6506
6507
6508
6509
6510
6511
6512
6513
6514
6515
6516
6517
6518
6519
6520
6521
6522
6523
6524
6525
6526
6527
6528
6529
6530
6531
6532
6533
6534
6535
6536
6537
6538
6539
6540
6541
6542
6543
6544
6545
6546
6547
6548
6549
6550
6551
6552
6553
6554
6555
6556
6557
6558
6559
6560
6561
6562
6563
6564
6565
6566
6567
6568
6569
6570
6571
6572
6573
6574
6575
6576
6577
6578
6579
6580
6581
6582
6583
6584
6585
6586
6587
6588
6589
6590
6591
6592
6593
6594
6595
6596
6597
6598
6599
6600
6601
6602
6603
6604
6605
6606
6607
6608
6609
6610
6611
6612
6613
6614
6615
6616
6617
6618
6619
6620
6621
6622
6623
6624
6625
6626
6627
6628
6629
6630
6631
6632
6633
6634
6635
6636
6637
6638
6639
6640
6641
6642
6643
6644
6645
6646
6647
6648
6649
6650
6651
6652
6653
6654
6655
6656
6657
6658
6659
6660
6661
6662
6663
6664
6665
6666
6667
6668
6669
6670
6671
6672
6673
6674
6675
6676
6677
6678
6679
6680
6681
6682
6683
6684
6685
6686
6687
6688
6689
6690
6691
6692
6693
6694
6695
6696
6697
6698
6699
6700
6701
6702
6703
6704
6705
6706
6707
6708
6709
6710
6711
6712
6713
6714
6715
6716
6717
6718
6719
6720
6721
6722
6723
6724
6725
6726
6727
6728
6729
6730
6731
6732
6733
6734
6735
6736
6737
6738
6739
6740
6741
6742
6743
6744
6745
6746
6747
6748
6749
6750
6751
6752
6753
6754
6755
6756
6757
6758
6759
6760
6761
6762
6763
6764
6765
6766
6767
6768
6769
6770
6771
6772
6773
6774
6775
6776
6777
6778
6779
6780
6781
6782
6783
6784
6785
6786
6787
6788
6789
6790
6791
6792
6793
6794
6795
6796
6797
6798
6799
6800
6801
6802
6803
6804
6805
6806
6807
6808
6809
6810
6811
6812
6813
6814
6815
6816
6817
6818
6819
6820
6821
6822
6823
6824
6825
6826
6827
6828
6829
6830
6831
6832
6833
6834
6835
6836
6837
6838
6839
6840
6841
6842
6843
6844
6845
6846
6847
6848
6849
6850
6851
6852
6853
6854
6855
6856
6857
6858
6859
6860
6861
6862
6863
6864
6865
6866
6867
6868
6869
6870
6871
6872
6873
6874
6875
6876
6877
6878
6879
6880
6881
6882
6883
6884
6885
6886
6887
6888
6889
6890
6891
6892
6893
6894
6895
6896
6897
6898
6899
6900
6901
6902
6903
6904
6905
6906
6907
6908
6909
6910
6911
6912
6913
6914
6915
6916
6917
6918
6919
6920
6921
6922
6923
6924
6925
6926
6927
6928
6929
6930
6931
6932
6933
6934
6935
6936
6937
6938
6939
6940
6941
6942
6943
6944
6945
6946
6947
6948
6949
6950
6951
6952
6953
6954
6955
6956
6957
6958
6959
6960
6961
6962
6963
6964
6965
6966
6967
6968
6969
6970
6971
6972
6973
6974
6975
6976
6977
6978
6979
6980
6981
6982
6983
6984
6985
6986
6987
6988
6989
6990
6991
6992
6993
6994
6995
6996
6997
6998
6999
7000
7001
7002
7003
7004
7005
7006
7007
7008
7009
7010
7011
7012
7013
7014
7015
7016
7017
7018
7019
7020
7021
7022
7023
7024
7025
7026
7027
7028
7029
7030
7031
7032
7033
7034
7035
7036
7037
7038
7039
7040
7041
7042
7043
7044
7045
7046
7047
7048
7049
7050
7051
7052
7053
7054
7055
7056
7057
7058
7059
7060
7061
7062
7063
7064
7065
7066
7067
7068
7069
7070
7071
7072
7073
7074
7075
7076
7077
7078
7079
7080
7081
7082
7083
7084
7085
7086
7087
7088
7089
7090
7091
7092
7093
7094
7095
7096
7097
7098
7099
7100
7101
7102
7103
7104
7105
7106
7107
7108
7109
7110
7111
7112
7113
7114
7115
7116
7117
7118
7119
7120
7121
7122
7123
7124
7125
7126
7127
7128
7129
7130
7131
7132
7133
7134
7135
7136
7137
7138
7139
7140
7141
7142
7143
7144
7145
7146
7147
7148
7149
7150
7151
7152
7153
7154
7155
7156
7157
7158
7159
7160
7161
7162
7163
7164
7165
7166
7167
7168
7169
7170
7171
7172
7173
7174
7175
7176
7177
7178
7179
7180
7181
7182
7183
7184
7185
7186
7187
7188
7189
7190
7191
7192
7193
7194
7195
7196
7197
7198
7199
7200
7201
7202
7203
7204
7205
7206
7207
7208
7209
7210
7211
7212
7213
7214
7215
7216
7217
7218
7219
7220
7221
7222
7223
7224
7225
7226
7227
7228
7229
7230
7231
7232
7233
7234
7235
7236
7237
7238
7239
7240
7241
7242
7243
7244
7245
7246
7247
7248
7249
7250
7251
7252
7253
7254
7255
7256
7257
7258
7259
7260
7261
7262
7263
7264
7265
7266
7267
7268
7269
7270
7271
7272
7273
7274
7275
7276
7277
7278
7279
7280
7281
7282
7283
7284
7285
7286
7287
7288
7289
7290
7291
7292
7293
7294
7295
7296
7297
7298
7299
7300
7301
7302
7303
7304
7305
7306
7307
7308
7309
7310
7311
7312
7313
7314
7315
7316
7317
7318
7319
7320
7321
7322
7323
7324
7325
7326
7327
7328
7329
7330
7331
7332
7333
7334
7335
7336
7337
7338
7339
7340
7341
7342
7343
7344
7345
7346
7347
7348
7349
7350
7351
7352
7353
7354
7355
7356
7357
7358
7359
7360
7361
7362
7363
7364
7365
7366
7367
7368
7369
7370
7371
7372
7373
7374
7375
7376
7377
7378
7379
7380
7381
7382
7383
7384
7385
7386
7387
7388
7389
7390
7391
7392
7393
7394
7395
7396
7397
7398
7399
7400
7401
7402
7403
7404
7405
7406
7407
7408
7409
7410
7411
7412
7413
7414
7415
7416
7417
7418
7419
7420
7421
7422
7423
7424
7425
7426
7427
7428
7429
7430
7431
7432
7433
7434
7435
7436
7437
7438
7439
7440
7441
7442
7443
7444
7445
7446
7447
7448
7449
7450
7451
7452
7453
7454
7455
7456
7457
7458
7459
7460
7461
7462
7463
7464
7465
7466
7467
7468
7469
7470
7471
7472
7473
7474
7475
7476
7477
7478
7479
7480
7481
7482
7483
7484
7485
7486
7487
7488
7489
7490
7491
7492
7493
7494
7495
7496
7497
7498
7499
7500
7501
7502
7503
7504
7505
7506
7507
7508
7509
7510
7511
7512
7513
7514
7515
7516
7517
7518
7519
7520
7521
7522
7523
7524
7525
7526
7527
7528
7529
7530
7531
7532
7533
7534
7535
7536
7537
7538
7539
7540
7541
7542
7543
7544
7545
7546
7547
7548
7549
7550
7551
7552
7553
7554
7555
7556
7557
7558
7559
7560
7561
7562
7563
7564
7565
7566
7567
7568
7569
7570
7571
7572
7573
7574
7575
7576
7577
7578
7579
7580
7581
7582
7583
7584
7585
7586
7587
7588
7589
7590
7591
7592
7593
7594
7595
7596
7597
7598
7599
7600
7601
7602
7603
7604
7605
7606
7607
7608
7609
7610
7611
7612
7613
7614
7615
7616
7617
7618
7619
7620
7621
7622
7623
7624
7625
7626
7627
7628
7629
7630
7631
7632
7633
7634
7635
7636
7637
7638
7639
7640
7641
7642
7643
7644
7645
7646
7647
7648
7649
7650
7651
7652
7653
7654
7655
7656
7657
7658
7659
7660
7661
7662
7663
7664
7665
7666
7667
7668
7669
7670
7671
7672
7673
7674
7675
7676
7677
7678
7679
7680
7681
7682
7683
7684
7685
7686
7687
7688
7689
7690
7691
7692
7693
7694
7695
7696
7697
7698
7699
7700
7701
7702
7703
7704
7705
7706
7707
7708
7709
7710
7711
7712
7713
7714
7715
7716
7717
7718
7719
7720
7721
7722
7723
7724
7725
7726
7727
7728
7729
7730
7731
7732
7733
7734
7735
7736
7737
7738
7739
7740
7741
7742
7743
7744
7745
7746
7747
7748
7749
7750
7751
7752
7753
7754
7755
7756
7757
7758
7759
7760
7761
7762
7763
7764
7765
7766
7767
7768
7769
7770
7771
7772
7773
7774
7775
7776
7777
7778
7779
7780
7781
7782
7783
7784
7785
7786
7787
7788
7789
7790
7791
7792
7793
7794
7795
7796
7797
7798
7799
7800
7801
7802
7803
7804
7805
7806
7807
7808
7809
7810
7811
7812
7813
7814
7815
7816
7817
7818
7819
7820
7821
7822
7823
7824
7825
7826
7827
7828
7829
7830
7831
7832
7833
7834
7835
7836
7837
7838
7839
7840
7841
7842
7843
7844
7845
7846
7847
7848
7849
7850
7851
7852
7853
7854
7855
7856
7857
7858
7859
7860
7861
7862
7863
7864
7865
7866
7867
7868
7869

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
    "text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
    <title>
      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Room in the Dragon Volant,
      by J. Sheridan LeFanu.
    </title>
    <style type="text/css">
    <!--
    * { font-family:   Times;}
    P { text-indent:   1em;
        margin-top:    .75em;
        font-size:     12pt;
        text-align:    justify;
        margin-bottom: .75em; }
    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; }
    HR  { width: 33%; }
    PRE { font-family: Courier, monospaced; }
    // -->
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>


<pre>

Project Gutenberg's The Room in the Dragon Volant, by J. Sheridan LeFanu

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: The Room in the Dragon Volant

Author: J. Sheridan LeFanu

Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9502]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on October 6, 2003]
[Date last updated: December 22, 2004]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Garcia and PG Distributed Proofreaders





</pre>


    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <h1>
      The Room in the Dragon Volant
    </h1>
    <center>
      <b>By J. Sheridan LeFanu</b>
    </center>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>

    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <h3>
      <i>Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu</i>
    </h3>
    <pre>
  The Cock and Anchor
  Torlogh O'Brien
  The Home by the Churchyard
  Uncle Silas
  Checkmate
  Carmilla
  The Wyvern Mystery
  Guy Deverell
  Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery
  The Chronicles of Golden Friars
  In a Glass Darkly
  The Purcell Papers
  The Watcher and Other Weird Stories
  A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories
  Madam Crowl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery
  Green Tea and Other Stones
  Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius
  Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu
  The Best Horror Stories
  The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories
  Ghost Stories and Mysteries
  The Hours After Midnight
  J.S. LeFanu: Ghost Stories and Mysteries
  Ghost and Horror Stones
  Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories
  Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery
</pre>
    <h3>
      The Room in the Dragon Volant
    </h3>

    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <h2>
      Contents
    </h2>
    <hr>
    <p>
      <a href="#PRO">Prologue</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH1">Chapter I. ON THE ROAD</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH2">Chapter II. THE INN-YARD OF THE BELLE
      &Eacute;TOILE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH3">Chapter III. DEATH AND LOVE TOGETHER MATED</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH4">Chapter IV. MONSIEUR DROQVILLE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH5">Chapter V. SUPPER AT THE BELLE
      &Eacute;TOILE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH6">Chapter VI. THE NAKED SWORD</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH7">Chapter VII. THE WHITE ROSE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH8">Chapter VIII. A THREE MINUTES' VISIT</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH9">Chapter IX. GOSSIP AND COUNSEL</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH10">Chapter X. THE BLACK VEIL</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH11">Chapter XI. THE DRAGON VOLANT</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH12">Chapter XII. THE MAGICIAN</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH13">Chapter XIII. THE ORACLE TELLS ME WONDERS</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH14">Chapter XIV. MADEMOISELLE DE LA
      VALLI&Egrave;RE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH15">Chapter XV. STRANGE STORY OF THE DRAGON
      VOLANT</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH16">Chapter XVI. THE PARC OF THE CH&Acirc;TEAU DE
      LA CARQUE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH17">Chapter XVII. THE TENANT OF THE PALANQUIN</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH18">Chapter XVIII. THE CHURCHYARD</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH19">Chapter XIX. THE KEY</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH20">Chapter XX. A HIGH-CAULD-CAP</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH21">Chapter XXI. I SEE THREE MEN IN A MIRROR</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH22">Chapter XXII. RAPTURE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH23">Chapter XXIII. A CUP OF COFFEE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH24">Chapter XXIV. HOPE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH25">Chapter XXV. DESPAIR</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a href="#CH26">Chapter XXVI. CATASTROPHE</a>
    </p>
    <hr>
    <center>
      [Transcriber's Note: Contents section was generated.]
    </center>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="PRO"><!-- PRO --></a>
    <h2>
      Prologue
    </h2>
    <p>
      <i>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 Drug of the Dark and the Middle
      Ages, from the pen of Doctor Hesselius</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>This Essay he entitles</i> Mortis Imago, <i>and he,
      therein, discusses the</i> Vinum letiferum, <i>the</i>
      Beatifica, <i>the</i> Somnus Angelorum, <i>the</i> Hypnus
      Sagarum, <i>the</i> Aqua Thessalliae, <i>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</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>The Essay,</i> Mortis Imago, <i>will occupy, as nearly as
      I can at present calculate, two volumes, the ninth and tenth,
      of the collected papers of Dr. Martin Hesselius</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>This Essay, I may remark in conclusion, is very curiously
      enriched by citations, in great abundance, from medieval
      verse and prose romance, some of the most valuable of which,
      strange to say, are Egyptian</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>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</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH1"><!-- CH1 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter I
    </h2>
    <center>
      ON THE ROAD
    </center>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the slight check of the "hundred days" removed, by
      the genius of Wellington, on the field of Waterloo&#8212;was
      now added to the philosophic throng.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was posting up to Paris from Brussels, following, I
      presume, the route that the allied army had pursued but a few
      weeks before&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      <i>tournure</i>, 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 Brussels lace as she
      drew back.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The arms that were emblazoned on the panel were peculiar; I
      remember especially one device&#8212;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 traveling carriage, and
      the supporters to their arms, satisfied me that they were
      noble.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      &Eacute;toile, a comfortable old inn. They got out of the
      carriage and entered the house.
    </p>
    <p>
      At a leisurely pace we followed. I got down, and mounted the
      steps listlessly, like a man quite apathetic and careless.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. <i>My</i> 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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I might, indeed, have mistaken it for a picture; for it now
      reflected a half-length portrait of a singularly beautiful
      woman.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was looking down upon a letter which she held in her
      slender fingers, and in which she seemed absorbed.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 color; 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&#8212;I gazed on a tinted statue.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH2"><!-- CH2 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter II
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE INN-YARD OF THE BELLE &Eacute;TOILE
    </center>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I bowed very low, faltered some apologies, and backed to the
      door.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 today."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I ran down the stairs, very much elated. I saw the host of
      the Belle &Eacute;toile which, as I said, was the sign and
      designation of my inn.
    </p>
    <p>
      I described the apartment I had just quitted, said I liked
      it, and asked whether I could have it.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was extremely troubled, but that apartment and two
      adjoining rooms were engaged.
    </p>
    <p>
      "By whom?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "People of distinction."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But who are they? They must have names or titles."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Undoubtedly, Monsieur, but such a stream is rolling into
      Paris, that we have ceased to inquire the names or titles of
      our guests&#8212;we designate them simply by the rooms they
      occupy."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What stay do they make?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Even that, Monsieur, I cannot answer. It does not interest
      us. Our rooms, while this continues, can never be, for a
      moment, disengaged."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I should have liked those rooms so much! Is one of them a
      sleeping apartment?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, sir, and Monsieur will observe that people do not
      usually engage bedrooms unless they mean to stay the night."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, I can, I suppose, have some rooms, any, I don't care
      in what part of the house?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Certainly, Monsieur can have two apartments. They are the
      last at present disengaged."
    </p>
    <p>
      I took them instantly.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Among these objects, I thought I recognized the traveling
      carriage, and one of the servants of the "persons of
      distinction" about whom I was, just then, so profoundly
      interested.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A very pretty device that red stork!" I observed, pointing
      to the shield on the door, "and no doubt indicates a
      distinguished family?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing daunted, I forthwith administered that laxative
      which, on occasion, acts so happily upon the tongue&#8212;I
      mean a "tip."
    </p>
    <p>
      The servant looked at the Napoleon in his hand, and then in
      my face, with a sincere expression of surprise. "Monsieur is
      very generous!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not worth mentioning&#8212;who are the lady and gentleman
      who came here in this carriage, and whom, you may remember, I
      and my servant assisted today in an emergency, when their
      horses had come to the ground?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "They are the Count, and the young lady we call the
      Countess&#8212;but I know not, she may be his daughter."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Can you tell me where they live?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Upon my honor, Monsieur, I am unable&#8212;I know not."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not know where your master lives! Surely you know something
      more about him than his name?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nothing worth relating, Monsieur; in fact, I was hired in
      Brussels, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And where is Monsieur Picard?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "He has gone to the cutler's to get his razors set. But I do
      not think he will tell anything."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Forthwith I summoned my servant. Though I had brought him
      with me from England, he was a native of France&#8212;a
      useful fellow, sharp, bustling, and, of course, quite
      familiar with the ways and tricks of his countrymen.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 today have them to a <i>petit
      souper</i>, 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&#8212;you
      understand? Begone! fly! and return with all the details I
      sigh for, and every circumstance that can possibly interest
      me."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I am sure he laughed at me in secret; but nothing could be
      more polite and deferential.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH3"><!-- CH3 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter III
    </h2>
    <center>
      DEATH AND LOVE TOGETHER MATED
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      I had two or three idle books, it is true, as
      companions-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 <i>chevelure</i>, with a natural curl, is now
      represented by a few dozen perfectly white hairs, and its
      place&#8212;a smooth, bald, pink head&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      All this attention to effect, preparatory to a mere lounge in
      the yard, or on the steps of the Belle &Eacute;toile, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The other voice remained nearer the window, but not so near
      as at first.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;a violent one&#8212;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:
    </p>
    <pre>
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The lady's voice laughed gaily.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of all thin partitions, glass is the most effectual excluder
      of sound. I heard no more, not even the subdued hum of the
      colloquy.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;aye, old gentleman, and for whom you
      suspected it to be intended."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 favor me. I could not stay on
      the lobby all night picking up my stick, so I went down to
      the hall.
    </p>
    <p>
      I consulted the clock, and found that there remained but a
      quarter of an hour to the moment of supper.
    </p>
    <p>
      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'h&ocirc;te?
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH4"><!-- CH4 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter IV
    </h2>
    <center>
      MONSIEUR DROQVILLE
    </center>
    <p>
      Full of this exciting hope I sauntered out upon the steps of
      the Belle &Eacute;toile. 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&#8212;<i>tragedy</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;&#8212;, who knew my father slightly, and had
      once done me, also, a trifling kindness.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <pre>
 My Dear Beckett,
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;with the
      concurrence of all our friends&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <pre>
 Yours faithfully,
 R&#8212;&#8212;
</pre>
    <p>
      I was utterly puzzled. I could scarcely boast of Lord
      R&#8212;&#8212;'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&#8212;for I was plain Richard Beckett&#8212;I
      read:
    </p>
    <pre>
  "<i>To George Stanhope Beckett, Esq., M.P.</i>"
</pre>
    <p>
      I looked with consternation in the face of the Marquis.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What apology can I offer to Monsieur the Mar&#8212;&#8212;
      to Monsieur Droqville? It is true my name is Beckett&#8212;it
      is true I am known, though very slightly, to Lord
      R&#8212;&#8212;; but the letter was not intended for me. My
      name is Richard Beckett&#8212;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
      honor 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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 honor. Monsieur Beckett will permit me, I
      hope, to place his name among those of my friends?"
    </p>
    <p>
      I thanked the Marquis very much for his kind expressions. He
      went on to say:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      With many acknowledgments I gave him, the information he
      desired.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 humor.
    </p>
    <p>
      Very graciously the Marquis took his leave, going up the
      stairs of the Belle &Eacute;toile.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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'h&ocirc;te 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&#8212;good! The stork is a bird of
      prey; it is vigilant, greedy, and catches gudgeons. Red,
      too!&#8212;blood red! Hal ha! the symbol is appropriate."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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, <i>parbleu</i>!
      often without it&#8212; 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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      He turned with an angry whisk on his heel, and swaggered with
      long strides out of the gate.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH5"><!-- CH5 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter V
    </h2>
    <center>
      SUPPER AT THE BELLE &Eacute;TOILE
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was time now to go to the table-d'h&ocirc;te. Who could
      tell what lights the gossip of the supper-table might throw
      upon the subject that interested me so powerfully!
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &Eacute;toile 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'h&ocirc;te or starving.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This is, probably, your first visit to France?" he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      I told him it was, and he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;." He paused.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "So do many of our London rogues."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, but in a totally different way. They are the
      <i>habitu&eacute;s</i> 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 <i>finesse</i>.
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But I have heard of a young Englishman, a son of Lord
      Rooksbury, who broke two Parisian gaming tables only last
      year."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And is that rule in force still?" I inquired, chapfallen.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I confessed I had prepared for conquest upon a still grander
      scale. I had arrived with a purse of thirty thousand pounds
      sterling.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Any acquaintance of my very dear friend, Lord
      R&#8212;&#8212;, interests me; and, besides my regard for
      him, I am charmed with you; so you will pardon all my,
      perhaps, too officious questions and advice."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,
      honorable 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 honor, and the most sensible man in the
      world, except in one particular."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And that particular?" I hesitated. I was now deeply
      interested.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And the lady?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "The Countess is, I believe, in every way worthy of so good a
      man," he answered, a little dryly. "I think I heard her sing
      this evening."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, I daresay; she is very accomplished." After a few
      moments' silence he continued.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I must not lose sight of you, for I should be sorry, when
      next you meet my friend Lord R&#8212;&#8212;, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "On the honor of a soldier, there is no man's flesh in this
      company heals so fast as mine."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "No one! It's not blood; it is ichor! it's miracle! Set aside
      stature, thew, bone, and muscle&#8212;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&#8212;rip
      me up, punch me through, tear me to tatters with bomb-shells,
      and nature has me whole again, while your tailor would
      fine&#8212;draw an old coat. <i>Parbleu</i>! gentlemen, if
      you saw me naked, you would laugh! Look at my hand, a
      saber-cut across the palm, to the bone, to save my head,
      taken up with three stitches, and five days afterwards I was
      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 cut-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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Bravo! Bravissimo! Per Bacco! un gallant' uomo!" exclaimed,
      in a martial ecstasy, 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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 haemorrhage and
      saved my life. But, <i>sacrebleu</i>! 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 <i>vin ordinaire</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Marquis had closed his eyes, and looked resigned and
      disgusted, while all this was going on.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Gar&ccedil;on</i>," 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 traveling 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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The waiter could not say.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I rather think the Count and Countess de St. Alyre."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And are they here, in the Belle &Eacute;toile?" he asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      "They have got apartments upstairs," I answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      He started up, and half pushed his chair from the table. He
      quickly sat down again, and I could hear him
      <i>sacr&eacute;</i>-ing and muttering to himself, and
      grinning and scowling. I could not tell whether he was
      alarmed or furious.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 smoldered 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 marvelously high back that looked as old as the
      days of Henry IV.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Gar&ccedil;on</i>," said I, "do you happen to know who
      that officer is?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "That is Colonel Gaillarde, Monsieur."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Has he been often here?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Once before, Monsieur, for a week; it is a year since."
    </p>
    <p>
      "He is the palest man I ever saw."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That is true, Monsieur; he has been often taken for a
      <i>revenant</i>."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Can you give me a bottle of really good Burgundy?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "The best in France, Monsieur."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Place it, and a glass by my side, on this table, if you
      please. I may sit here for half-an-hour."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Certainly, Monsieur."
    </p>
    <p>
      I was very comfortable, the wine excellent, and my thoughts
      glowing and serene. "Beautiful Countess! Beautiful Countess!
      shall we ever be better acquainted?"
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH6"><!-- CH6 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter VI
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE NAKED SWORD
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 favorable precursor
      to pleasant dreams.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I found that I could neither speak nor move. I was horribly
      frightened.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      With an indescribable effort I broke the spell that bound me,
      and started to my feet with a gasp.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "That depends on who she is, Monsieur," replied the Colonel,
      curtly.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Good heavens!" I gasped, looking about me.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Colonel, who was eyeing me sarcastically, had had his
      <i>demitasse</i> of <i>caf&eacute; noir</i>, and now drank
      his <i>tasse</i>, diffusing a pleasant perfume of brandy.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I fell asleep and was dreaming," I said, lest any strong
      language, founded on the <i>r&ocirc;le</i> he played in my
      dream, should have escaped me. "I did not know for some
      moments where I was."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I believe so&#8212;yes," I answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What does Monsieur the Colonel mean?" I inquired.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am trying to find that out myself," said the Colonel; "and
      I think I shall. When <i>I</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 weasel! <i>Parbleu</i>! 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Very good," said I. "Will Monsieur the Colonel try a glass?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>me</i> to order your Burgundy, and they
      would not have brought you that stuff."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;anyone you please.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 d&eacute;tour, 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 center 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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>ennui</i>, 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 honor, 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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have ordered horses."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Can I be of any use in this matter?" I began.
    </p>
    <p>
      "None, Monsieur, I thank you a thousand times. No, this is a
      piece in which every <i>r&ocirc;le</i> is already cast. I am
      but an amateur, and induced solely by friendship, to take a
      part."
    </p>
    <p>
      So he talked on, for a time, as we walked slowly toward the
      Belle &Eacute;toile, and then came a silence, which I broke
      by asking him if he knew anything of Colonel Gaillarde.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;not regimental, of
      course&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      There is, or was, a second inn in this town called
      l'&Eacute;cu de France. At its door the Marquis stopped, bade
      me a mysterious good-night, and disappeared.
    </p>
    <p>
      As I walked slowly toward my inn, I met, in the shadow of a
      row of poplars, the gar&ccedil;on 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You said, I think, that Colonel Gaillarde was at the Belle
      &Eacute;toile for a week at one time."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, Monsieur."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is he perfectly in his right mind?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The waiter stared. "Perfectly, Monsieur."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Has he been suspected at any time of being out of his mind?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Never, Monsieur; he is a little noisy, but a very shrewd
      man."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What is a fellow to think?" I muttered, as I walked on.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was soon within sight of the lights of the Belle
      &Eacute;toile. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 traveling costume,
      with his black silk scarf covering the lower part of his
      face, confronted him; he had evidently been intercepted in an
      endeavor to reach his carriage. A little in the rear of the
      Count stood the Countess, also in traveling 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The host of the Belle &Eacute;toile 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! <i>you! both</i>&#8212;vampires, wolves, ghouls. Summon
      the <i>gendarmes</i>, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH7"><!-- CH7 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter VII
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE WHITE ROSE
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was about to ask if there were any commands with which she
      would honor me&#8212;my hand was laid upon the lower edge of
      the window, which was open.
    </p>
    <p>
      The lady's hand was laid upon mine timidly and excitedly. Her
      lips almost touched my cheek as she whispered hurriedly:
    </p>
    <p>
      "I may never see you more, and, oh! that I could forget you.
      Go&#8212;farewell&#8212;for God's sake, go!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I stood on the pavement till it was quite lost to eye and ear
      in the distance.
    </p>
    <p>
      With a deep sigh, I then turned, my white rose folded in my
      handkerchief&#8212;the little parting <i>gage</i>&#8212;the
    </p>
    <pre>
  Favor secret, sweet, and precious,
</pre>
    <p>
      which no mortal eye but hers and mine had seen conveyed to
      me.
    </p>
    <p>
      The care of the host of the Belle &Eacute;toile, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Colonel was conveyed, snorting apoplectically, to his
      room.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      <i>souvenir</i> from a guest who had been so charmed with all
      he had seen of the renowned Belle &Eacute;toile. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I immediately placed the Colonel's broken head upon the
      <i>tapis</i>. 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 &Eacute;toile. There was not a
      waiter in the house who would not verify that statement on
      oath.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      &Eacute;cu de France by a gentleman who dined and supped at
      the Belle &Eacute;toile, and was obliged to proceed to Paris
      that night.
    </p>
    <p>
      Who was the gentleman? Had he actually gone? Could he
      possibly be induced to wait till morning?
    </p>
    <p>
      The gentleman was now upstairs getting his things together,
      and his name was Monsieur Droqville.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, St. Clair, tell me this moment who the lady is?" I
      demanded.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The lady is the daughter or wife, it matters not which, of
      the Count de St. Alyre&#8212;the old gentleman who was so
      near being sliced like a cucumber tonight, I am informed, by
      the sword of the general whom Monsieur, by a turn of fortune,
      has put to bed of an apoplexy."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hold your tongue, fool! The man's beastly drunk&#8212;he's
      sulking&#8212;he could talk if he liked&#8212;who cares? Pack
      up my things. Which are Monsieur Droqville's apartments?"
    </p>
    <p>
      He knew, of course; he always knew everything.
    </p>
    <p>
      Half an hour later Monsieur Droqville and I were traveling
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes; I believe a very beautiful and charming young
      lady&#8212;I cannot say&#8212;it may have been she, his
      daughter by an earlier marriage. I saw only the Count himself
      today."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 tonight 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 <i>caf&eacute;
      noir</i>, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I declined the tray; so he placed it on his own knees, to act
      as a miniature table.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I can't endure being waited for and hurried," he said, "I
      like to sip my coffee at leisure."
    </p>
    <p>
      I agreed. It really <i>was</i> the very perfection of coffee.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Before we had half done, the carriage was again in motion.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a time our coffee made us chatty, and our conversation
      was animated.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In spite of the amusing and curious stories which the Marquis
      related with so much point and color, I felt myself again
      becoming gradually drowsy and dreamy.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I leaned back in my corner; I had my beloved
      souvenir&#8212;my white rose&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Marquis lifted his dispatch-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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I would have rubbed my eyes, but I could not stir my hand, my
      will no longer acted on my body&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I made a stupendous exertion to call out, but in vain; I
      repeated the effort again and again, with no result.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, I see the lights; we shall be there in two or three
      minutes."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;how profoundly he sleeps! when the carriage stops
      he will waken."
    </p>
    <p>
      He then replaced his letters in the box-box, locked it, put
      his spectacles in his pocket, and again looked out of the
      window.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Here we are!" said my companion, turning gaily to me. But I
      did not awake.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH8"><!-- CH8 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter VIII
    </h2>
    <center>
      A THREE MINUTES' VISIT
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The power of thought remained clear and active. Dull terror
      filled my mind. How would this end? Was it actual death?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
    </p>
    <pre>
This man seemed to glide through his work with a noiseless and cool
celerity which argued, I thought, the training of the police department.
</pre>
    <pre>
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!
</pre>
    <pre>
He resumed his reading and docketing by the light of the little lamp
which had just subserved the purposes of a spy.
</pre>
    <pre>
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 ear, 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.
</pre>
    <pre>
The Marquis stared at me, took my hand, and earnestly asked if I was
ill. I could answer only with a deep groan.
</pre>
    <pre>
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.
</pre>
    <pre>
"Good heaven!" he exclaimed, "the miscreant did not get at my box-box?"
</pre>
    <pre>
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.
</pre>
    <pre>
"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."
</pre>
    <pre>
He now asked with a very kind anxiety all about the illness I complained
of. When he had heard me, he said:
</pre>
    <pre>
"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."
</pre>
    <pre>
"I am happy to think that my attack was not unique. Did he ever
experience a return of it?"
</pre>
    <pre>
"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."
</pre>
    <pre>
"I wish," he resumed, "one could make out who the <i>coquin</i> 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."
</pre>
    <pre>
I talked very little, being ill and exhausted, but the Marquis talked on
agreeably.
</pre>
    <pre>
"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 Ch&acirc;teau d'Harmonville."
</pre>
    <pre>
You may be sure I thanked the Marquis.
</pre>
    <pre>
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.
</pre>
    <pre>
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.
</pre>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH9"><!-- CH9 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter IX
    </h2>
    <center>
      GOSSIP AND COUNSEL
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In came the Marquis d'Harmonville, kind and gracious as ever.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I thanked him very much.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And now a word in my office of Mentor. You have not come
      here, of course, without introductions?"
    </p>
    <p>
      I produced half-a-dozen letters, the addresses of which he
      looked at.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I thanked him again, and promised to profit by his advice.
      But my heart was too full of the beautiful lady of the Belle
      &Eacute;toile, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "How long have they been away?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "About eight months, I think."
    </p>
    <p>
      "They are poor, I think you said?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "What <i>you</i> 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then they are very happy?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "One would say they <i>ought</i> to be happy."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And what prevents?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "He is jealous."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But his wife&#8212;she gives him no cause."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am afraid she does."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How, Monsieur?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I always thought she was a little too&#8212;<i>a great
      deal</i> too&#8212;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Too <i>what</i>, Monsieur?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "There was a lady, muffled up in a cloak, with a very thick
      veil on, the other night, in the hall of the Belle
      &Eacute;toile, 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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Who, he and his wife?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes."
    </p>
    <p>
      "A little."
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh! and what do they quarrel about?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is a long story; about the lady's diamonds. They are
      valuable&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And pray what is that?" I asked, my curiosity a good deal
      piqued.
    </p>
    <p>
      "She is thinking, I conjecture, how well she will look in
      them when she marries her second husband."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh?&#8212;yes, to be sure. But the Count de St. Alyre is a
      good man?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Admirable, and extremely intelligent."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I should wish so much to be presented to the Count: you tell
      me he's so&#8212;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And he must remember so much of the old
      <i>r&eacute;gime</i>, and so many of the scenes of the
      revolution!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;her husband!"
    </p>
    <p>
      The Marquis stood up to take his leave.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;I mean a
      <i>bal masqu&eacute;</i>, conducted, it is said, with more
      than usual splendor. It takes place at Versailles&#8212;all
      the world will be there; there is such a rush for cards! But
      I think I may promise you one. Good-night! Adieu!"
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH10"><!-- CH10 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter X
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE BLACK VEIL
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      How awfully unlucky. I was so afraid I should not be able to
      go.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      I 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Just so! You English, wherever you are, always look out for
      your English boors, your beer and <i>'bifstek'</i>; 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      He laughed sarcastically, and looked as if he could have
      poisoned me.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 favor, and secures a privilege for an
      acquaintance, to treat him so."
    </p>
    <p>
      This was astonishingly impertinent.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 Beckett will forget
      that his old friend Monsieur Droqville has lost his temper in
      his cause, for a moment, and&#8212;we are as good friends as
      before."
    </p>
    <p>
      He smiled like the Monsieur Droqville of the Belle
      &Eacute;toile, and extended his hand, which I took very
      respectfully and cordially.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our momentary quarrel had left us only better friends.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I should have done more wisely if I had jumped down on the
      <i>trottoir</i>, 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 <i>tactique</i>. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I stood for a while amid a storm of <i>sacr&eacute;</i>-ing,
      tempered disagreeably with laughter; and in the midst of
      these, while endeavoring to beat the dust from my clothes
      with my handkerchief, I heard a voice with which I was
      acquainted call, "Monsieur Beckett."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Fortunately an opening in the closely-packed carriages had
      just occurred, and mine was approaching.
    </p>
    <p>
      I directed the servant to follow us; and the Marquis having
      said a word to his driver, we were immediately in motion.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I shan't go in&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;a flower won't do, so many people will have
      flowers. Suppose you get a red cross a couple of inches
      long&#8212; you're an Englishman&#8212;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 <i>must</i>
      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 tonight."
    </p>
    <p>
      By this time I was standing on the road; I shut the
      carriage-door; bid him good-bye; and away he drove.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH11"><!-- CH11 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XI
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE DRAGON VOLANT
    </center>
    <p>
      I took one look about me.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 ch&acirc;teau.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      My host conducted me to my apartment. It was a large room, a
      little somber, paneled with dark wainscoting, and furnished
      in a stately and somber 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 ch&acirc;teau which presented a cluster of such
      conical-topped turrets as I have just now mentioned.
    </p>
    <p>
      The wood and ch&acirc;teau 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I asked my host the name of the ch&acirc;teau.
    </p>
    <p>
      "That, Monsieur, is the Ch&acirc;teau de la Carque," he
      answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is a pity it is so neglected," I observed. "I should say,
      perhaps, a pity that its proprietor is not more wealthy?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Perhaps so, Monsieur."
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Perhaps</i>?" I repeated, and looked at him. "Then I
      suppose he is not very popular."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Neither one thing nor the other, Monsieur," he answered; "I
      meant only that we could not tell what use he might make of
      riches."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And who is he?" I inquired.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The Count de St. Alyre."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh! The Count! You are quite sure?" I asked, very eagerly.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was now the innkeeper's turn to look at me.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Quite</i> sure, Monsieur, the Count de St. Alyre."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Do you see much of him in this part of the world?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not a great deal, Monsieur; he is often absent for a
      considerable time."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And is he poor?" I inquired.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "From what I have heard, however, I should think he cannot be
      very poor?" I continued.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 P&egrave;re 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "He is old, I believe?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Old? We call him the 'Wandering Jew,' except, indeed, that
      he has not always the five <i>sous</i> in his pocket. Yet,
      Monsieur, his courage does not fail him. He has taken a young
      and handsome wife."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And she?" I urged&#8212;
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is the Countess de St. Alyre."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes; but I fancy we may say something more? She has
      attributes?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Three, Monsieur, three, at least most amiable."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ah! And what are they?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Youth, beauty, and&#8212;diamonds."
    </p>
    <p>
      I laughed. The sly old gentleman was foiling my curiosity.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I see, my friend," said I, "you are reluctant&#8212;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "One question, I think you may answer," I said, "without
      risking a quarrel. Is the Count at home?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "He has many homes, I conjecture," said the host evasively.
      "But&#8212;but I think I may say, Monsieur, that he is, I
      believe, at present staying at the Ch&acirc;teau de la
      Carque."
    </p>
    <p>
      I looked out of the window, more interested than ever, across
      the undulating grounds to the ch&acirc;teau, with its gloomy
      background of foliage.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I saw him today, in his carriage at Versailles," I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Very natural."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then his carriage, and horses, and servants, are at the
      ch&acirc;teau?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "The carriage he puts up here, Monsieur, and the servants are
      hired for the occasion. There is but one who sleeps at the
      ch&acirc;teau. Such a life must be terrifying for Madame the
      Countess," he replied.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The old screw!" I thought. "By this torture, he hopes to
      extract her diamonds. What a life! What fiends to contend
      with&#8212;jealousy and extortion!"
    </p>
    <p>
      The knight having made his speech to himself, cast his eyes
      once more upon the enchanter's castle, and heaved a gentle
      sigh&#8212;a sigh of longing, of resolution, and of love.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, St. Clair," said I, as my servant entered, and began
      to arrange my things.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You have got a bed?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "In the cock-loft, Monsieur, among the spiders, and, <i>par
      ma foi</i>! the cats and the owls. But we agree very well.
      <i>Vive la bagatelle</i>!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I had no idea it was so full."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Chiefly the servants, Monsieur, of those persons who were
      fortunate enough to get apartments at Versailles."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And what do you think of the Dragon Volant?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What do you mean? <i>Revenants</i>?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not at all, sir; I wish it was no worse. <i>Revenants</i>?
      No! People who have never returned&#8212;who vanished, before
      the eyes of half-a-dozen men all looking at them."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What do you mean, St. Clair? Let us hear the story, or
      miracle, or whatever it is."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is only this, Monsieur, that an ex-master-of-the-horse of
      the late king, who lost his head&#8212;Monsieur will have the
      goodness to recollect, in the revolution&#8212;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
      center of the room, downstairs, describing to seven gentlemen
      of unquestionable veracity the last moments of Peter the
      Great, and having a glass of <i>eau de vie</i> in his left
      hand, and his <i>tasse de cafe,</i> 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 <i>eau
      de vie</i>&#8212;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Which he swallowed in his confusion," I suggested.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Which was preserved for three years among the curious
      articles of this house, and was broken by the
      <i>cur&eacute;</i> while conversing with Mademoiselle Fidone
      in the housekeeper's room; but of the Russian nobleman
      himself, nothing more was ever seen or heard. <i>Parbleu</i>!
      when <i>we</i> 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then it <i>must</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH12"><!-- CH12 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XII
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE MAGICIAN
    </center>
    <p>
      No more brilliant spectacle than this masked ball could be
      imagined. Among other <i>salons</i> 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 <i>salons</i> was thronged with masques, in every
      conceivable costume. There was not a single room deserted.
      Everyplace was animated with music voices, brilliant colors,
      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 <i>fete.</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 colors. 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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am so glad I have found you," said the Marquis; "and at
      this moment. This is the best group in the rooms. <i>You</i>
      must speak to the wizard. About an hour ago I lighted upon
      them, in another <i>salon,</i> 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      He nodded toward a thin figure, also in a domino. It was the
      Count.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Come," he said to me, "I'll introduce you."
    </p>
    <p>
      I followed, you may suppose, readily enough.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Marquis presented me, with a very prettily-turned
      allusion to my fortunate intervention in his favor at the
      Belle &Eacute;toile; and the Count overwhelmed me with polite
      speeches, and ended by saying, what pleased me better still:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You must, positively, speak with the magician," said the
      Marquis to the Count de St. Alyre, "you will be so much
      amused. <i>I</i> did so; and, I assure you, I could not have
      anticipated such answers! I don't know what to believe."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Really! Then, by all means, let us try," he replied.
    </p>
    <p>
      We three approached, together, the side of the palanquin, at
      which the black-bearded magician stood.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ingenious mystification! Who is that in the palanquin? He
      seems to know everybody!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of these men&#8212;he who with a gilded wand had preceded
      the procession&#8212;advanced, extending his empty hand, palm
      upward.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Money?" inquired the Count.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Gold," replied the usher.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The conjuror drew back the curtain quickly, and placed his
      ear toward a richly-dressed Chinese, who sat in the litter;
      withdrew his head, and closed the curtain again; and then
      answered: "Yes."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Does my wife love me?" asked he, playfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As well as you deserve."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Whom do I love best in the world?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Self."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Her diamonds."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh!" said the Count. The Marquis, I could see, laughed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is it true," said the Count, changing the conversation
      peremptorily, "that there has been a battle in Naples?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No; in France."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Indeed," said the Count, satirically, with a glance round.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And may I inquire between what powers, and on what
      particular quarrel?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Between the Count and Countess de St. Alyre, and about a
      document they subscribed on the 25th July, 1811."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Marquis afterwards told me that this was the date of
      their marriage settlement.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Count stood stock-still for a minute or so; and one could
      fancy that they saw his face flushing through his mask.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nobody, but we two, knew that the inquirer was the Count de
      St. Alyre.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Look to your right, and see who is coming."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 honorable scars of war.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH13"><!-- CH13 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XIII
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE ORACLE TELLS ME WONDERS
    </center>
    <p>
      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&#8212;for my friend Gaillarde was as loud and
      swaggering in his assumed character as in his real one of a
      colonel of dragoons&#8212;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 <i>gendarmes</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No gold from him," said the magician. "His scars frank him."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Bravo, Monsieur le proph&egrave;te! Bravissimo! Here I am.
      Shall I begin, <i>mon sorcier</i>, without further loss of
      time, to question you?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Two persons."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ha! Two? Well, who are they?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "An Englishman, whom if you catch, he will kill you; and a
      French widow, whom if you find, she will spit in your face."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Monsieur le magicien calls a spade a spade, and knows that
      his cloth protects him. No matter! Why do I pursue them?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Bah! How could that be?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Near enough to be offended if you fail."
    </p>
    <p>
      "So she ought, by my faith. You are right, Monsieur le
      proph&egrave;te! 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>pose</i> 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I thought for a moment. I wished to test the prophet. A
      Church-of-England man was a <i>rara avis</i> in Paris.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What is my religion?" I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A beautiful heresy," answered the oracle instantly.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A heresy?&#8212;and pray how is it named?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Love."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh! Then I suppose I am a polytheist, and love a great
      many?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "One."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Can you repeat them?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Approach."
    </p>
    <p>
      I did, and lowered my ear.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>"I may never see you more; and, oh! I that I could forget
      you!&#8212;go&#8212;farewell&#8212;for God's sake, go!"</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      I started as I heard them. They were, you know, the last
      words whispered to me by the Countess.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What do I most long for?" I asked, scarcely knowing what I
      said.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Paradise."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And what prevents my reaching it?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "A black veil."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      "You said I loved someone. Am I loved in return?" I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Try."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Does anyone love me?" I repeated.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Secretly," was the answer.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Much or little?" I inquired.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Too well."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How long will that love last?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Till the rose casts its leaves."
    </p>
    <p>
      The rose&#8212;another allusion!
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then&#8212;darkness!" I sighed. "But till then I live in
      light."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The light of violet eyes."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      All this which, in the case of another I should have laughed
      at, most powerfully affected me in my own. It inflamed my
      ardor, and half crazed my brain, and even influenced my
      conduct.
    </p>
    <p>
      The spokesman of this wonderful trick&#8212;if trick it
      were&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The usher struck his wand on the ground, and, in a shrill
      voice, proclaimed: "The great Confu is silent for an hour."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 center 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      With a beating heart, I accompanied the Marquis
      d'Harmonville.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH14"><!-- CH14 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XIV
    </h2>
    <center>
      MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLI&Egrave;RE
    </center>
    <p>
      We wandered through the <i>salons</i>, the Marquis and I. It
      was no easy matter to find a friend in rooms so crowded.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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 Vali&egrave;re. 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?
    </p>
    <p>
      It was extremely provoking that this lady wore her mask, and
      did not, as many did, hold it for a time in her hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is not easy, Mademoiselle, to deceive me," I began.
    </p>
    <p>
      "So much the better for Monsieur," answered the mask,
      quietly.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I mean," I said, determined to tell my fib, "that beauty is
      a gift more difficult to conceal than Mademoiselle supposes."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yet Monsieur has succeeded very well," she said in the same
      sweet and careless tones.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I see the costume of this, the beautiful Mademoiselle de la
      Vali&egrave;re, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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,
    </p>
    <p>
      "What Countess?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "If you know me, you must know that she is my dearest friend.
      Is she not beautiful?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "How can I answer, there are so many countesses."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Everyone who knows me, knows who my best beloved friend is.
      You don't know me?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "That is cruel. I can scarcely believe I am mistaken."
    </p>
    <p>
      "With whom were you walking, just now?" she asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A gentleman, a friend," I answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      Here was another question that was extremely awkward.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There are so many people here, and one may walk, at one time
      with one, and at another with a different one, that&#8212;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mademoiselle would despise me, were I to violate a
      confidence."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "To that conjecture I can answer neither yes nor no."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You need not. But what was your motive in mortifying a
      lady?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is the last thing on earth I should do."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mademoiselle has formed a mistaken opinion of me."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Tell me whom you mean," I entreated. "Upon one condition."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What is that?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "That you will confess if I name the lady."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You describe my object unfairly," I objected. "I can't admit
      that I proposed speaking to any lady in the tone you
      describe."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, I shan't insist on that; only if I name the lady, you
      will promise to admit that I am right."
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Must</i> I promise?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Certainly not, there is no compulsion; but your promise is
      the only condition on which I will speak to you again."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Valli&egrave;re costume
      could not possibly know who the masked domino beside her was.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I consent," I said, "I promise."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You must promise on the honor of a gentleman."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, I do; on the honor of a gentleman."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then this lady is the Countess de St. Alyre."
    </p>
    <p>
      I was unspeakably surprised; I was disconcerted; but I
      remembered my promise, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      "The Countess de St. Alyre <i>is</i>, unquestionably, the
      lady to whom I hoped for an introduction tonight; but I beg
      to assure you, also on the honor of a gentleman, that she has
      not the faintest imaginable suspicion that I was seeking such
      an honor, nor, in all probability, does she remember that
      such a person as I exists. I had the honor to render her and
      the Count a trifling service, too trifling, I fear, to have
      earned more than an hour's recollection."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Valli&egrave;e, 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 saber of an enraged dragoon, with only a
      cudgel in his hand, and conquered.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You say the Countess is unhappy," said I. "What causes her
      unhappiness?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Many things. Her husband is old, jealous, and tyrannical. Is
      not that enough? Even when relieved from his society, she is
      lonely."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But you are her friend?" I suggested.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And you think one friend enough?" she answered; "she has one
      alone, to whom she can open her heart."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is there room for another friend?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Try."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How can I find a way?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "She will aid you."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How?"
    </p>
    <p>
      She answered by a question. "Have you secured rooms in either
      of the hotels of Versailles?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, I could not. I am lodged in the Dragon Volant, which
      stands at the verge of the grounds of the Ch&acirc;teau de la
      Carque."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 honor. 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 Ch&acirc;teau de la Carque.
      What room do you occupy in the Dragon Volant?"
    </p>
    <p>
      I was amazed at the audacity and decision of this girl. Was
      she, as we say in England, hoaxing me?
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I cannot describe the feeling with which I heard these words.
      I was astounded. Doubt succeeded. I could not believe these
      agitating words.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mademoiselle will believe that if I only dared assure myself
      that so great a happiness and honor 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 honor?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;or shall I call
      it our 'belle &eacute;toile?' Have I said enough?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Enough?" I repeated, "more than enough&#8212;a thousand
      thanks."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 practicing a vulgar trick upon
      you&#8212;a stranger?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You will be at the place I have described, then, at two
      o'clock?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Assuredly," I answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And Monsieur, I know, will not fail through fear. No, he
      need not assure me; his courage is already proved."
    </p>
    <p>
      "No danger, in such a case, will be unwelcome to me."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Had you not better go now, Monsieur, and rejoin your
      friend?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And Monsieur is so simple as to believe him?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why should I not?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I think I see him approaching, with my friend.
      No&#8212;there is no lady with him."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH15"><!-- CH15 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XV
    </h2>
    <center>
      STRANGE STORY OF THE DRAGON VOLANT
    </center>
    <p>
      These <i>f&ecirc;tes</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      &#8212;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,
      <i>f&ecirc;tes</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      After some agreeable conversation I was glad to observe that
      he preferred silence, and was satisfied with the
      <i>r&ocirc;le</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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
      <i>&eacute;migr&eacute;</i>, permitted to return to France by
      the Em&#8212;by Napoleon. He vanished. The
      other&#8212;equally strange&#8212;was the case of a Russian
      of rank and wealth. He disappeared just as mysteriously."
    </p>
    <p>
      "My servant," I said, "gave me a confused account of some
      occurrences, and, as well as I recollect, he described the
      same persons&#8212;I mean a returned French nobleman and a
      Russian gentleman. But he made the whole story so
      marvelous&#8212;I mean in the supernatural sense&#8212;that,
      I confess, I did not believe a word of it."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh! it has changed hands since then. But there seemed to be
      a fatality about a particular room."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Could you describe that room?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Certainly. It is a spacious, paneled bedroom, up one pair of
      stairs, in the back of the house, and at the extreme right,
      as you look from its windows."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ho! Really? Why, then, I have got the very room!" I said,
      beginning to be more interested&#8212;perhaps the least bit
      in the world, disagreeably. "Did the people die, or were they
      actually spirited away?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, they did not die&#8212;they disappeared very oddly. I'll
      tell you the particulars&#8212;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 dispatched 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      He took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at me.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Never! I shall relate all that happened, so far as we could
      discover. The French noble, who was the Chevalier Chateau
      Blassemare, unlike most <i>&eacute;migr&eacute;s</i> 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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      I assented.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This gentleman's habits were not expensive in proportion to
      his means. He had suitable lodgings in Paris; and for a time,
      society, and theaters, and other reasonable amusements,
      engrossed him. He did not play. He was a middleaged 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&#8212;a person, you see, not
      likely to provoke an enmity."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Certainly not," I agreed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Early in the summer of 1811 he got an order permitting him
      to copy a picture in one of these <i>salons</i>, 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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Most attentively," I answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>fiacre</i>, 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 <i>fiacre</i>. Up to that, you
      see, the narrative is quite clear."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Perfectly," I agreed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      He politely tendered his open snuff-box, of which I partook,
      experimentally.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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
      <i>fiacre</i> 'employed on the night of' (so-and-so), 'at
      about the hour of half-past ten, by a gentleman, with a
      black-leather bag-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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Intolerable!" I chimed in.
    </p>
    <p>
      The harlequin was soon gone, and he resumed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;upon
      which you are to observe, there was a brilliant moon&#8212;he
      was sent, his mother having been suddenly taken ill, for the
      <i>sage femme</i> 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 Ch&eacute;teau 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;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 neighborhood of
      Rouen. There has been no evidence of his death; and there is
      no sign that he is living."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I say, Carmaignac, it is getting late, and I must go; I
      really must, for the reason I told you&#8212;and, Beckett, we
      must soon meet again."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;a case more mysterious and sinister
      than the last&#8212;and which occurred in the autumn of the
      same year."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Will you both do a very good-natured thing, and come and
      dine with me at the Dragon Volant tomorrow?"
    </p>
    <p>
      So, as we pursued our way along the Galerie des Glaces, I
      extracted their promise.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;I met him here tonight&#8212;says they are
      gypsies&#8212;where are they, I wonder? I'll go over and have
      a peep at the prophet."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      The silent, moonlighted, solitary road, how it contrasted
      with the many-eddied whirl of pleasure from whose roar and
      music, lights, diamonds and colors I had just extricated
      myself.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH16"><!-- CH16 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XVI
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE PARC OF THE CH&Acirc;TEAU DE LA CARQUE
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I knew, therefore, I should have ample time for my mysterious
      excursion without exciting curiosity by being shut out.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 somber.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Ch&acirc;teau 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 ch&acirc;teau, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I took "the bearings" of this gloomy bit of wood, whose
      foliage glimmered softly at top in the light of the moon.
    </p>
    <p>
      You may guess with what a strange interest and swelling of
      the heart I gazed on the unknown scene of my coming
      adventure.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the hall I called for my servant.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Ch&acirc;teau de la Carque, as nefarious a poacher as
      ever trespassed on the grounds of unsuspicious lord!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;my heart beat
      fast with expectation.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      center. 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 discolored 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
      ch&acirc;teau, was making a constant tinkle and splashing 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 ch&acirc;teau,
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Valli&egrave;re, stood
      there.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;assorted marriage, with a jealous
      tyrant who now would constrain her to sell her diamonds,
      which are&#8212;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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. <i>Can</i> I aid her?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "If you despise a danger&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      At those words the lady in the mask turned away and seemed to
      weep.
    </p>
    <p>
      I vowed myself the willing slave of the Countess. "But," I
      added, "you told me she would soon be here."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Does she wish to see me?" I asked, with a tender hesitation.
    </p>
    <p>
      "First, say have you really thought of her, more than once,
      since the adventure of the Belle &Eacute;toile?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "She never leaves my thoughts; day and night her beautiful
      eyes haunt me; her sweet voice is always in my ear."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mine is said to resemble hers," said the mask.
    </p>
    <p>
      "So it does," I answered. "But it is only a resemblance."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh! then mine is better?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Pardon me, Mademoiselle, I did not say that. Yours is a
      sweet voice, but I fancy a little higher."
    </p>
    <p>
      "A little shriller, you would say," answered the De la
      Valli&egrave;re, I fancied a good deal vexed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, not shriller: your voice is not shrill, it is
      beautifully sweet; but not so pathetically sweet as hers."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That is prejudice, Monsieur; it is not true."
    </p>
    <p>
      I bowed; I could not contradict a lady.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You will admit, then, that my hand is as beautiful as hers?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>salon!</i>" 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 &Eacute;toile, 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 Vali&egrave;re, 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 forever. I have but a few moments
      more. Will you come here again tomorrow 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. <i>You owe that to me</i>."
    </p>
    <p>
      She spoke these last words with the most solemn entreaty.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was looking, I thought, more and more beautiful every
      moment. My enthusiasm expanded in proportion.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You must come tomorrow night by a different route," she
      said; "and if you come again, we can change it once more. At
      the other side of the ch&acirc;teau there is a little
      churchyard, with a ruined chapel. The neighbors 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I promised, of course, to observe her instructions
      implicitly.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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
      &Eacute;toile? Have you&#8212;have you really kept the rose I
      gave you, as we parted? Yes&#8212;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      I would have folded her to my heart&#8212;thrown myself at
      her feet. But this beautiful and&#8212;shall I say
      it&#8212;inconsistent woman repelled me.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 Ch&acirc;teau 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 tomorrow night. I have
      reasons that I cannot now explain, for all I do, and all I
      postpone. Farewell. Go! Leave me."
    </p>
    <p>
      She waved me back, peremptorily. I echoed her "farewell," and
      obeyed.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH17"><!-- CH17 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XVII
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE TENANT OF THE PALANQUIN
    </center>
    <p>
      The Marquis called on me next day. My late breakfast was
      still upon the table. He had come, he said, to ask a favor.
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      He smiled.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What am I to do?" exclaimed the Count, "an hour would have
      done it all. Was ever <i>contretemps</i> so unlucky?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I'll give you an hour, with pleasure," said I.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>funeste</i>. Pray read this note
      which reached me this morning."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Ch&acirc;teau Clery, had been, in
      accordance with his written directions, sent for burial at
      P&egrave;re la Chaise, and, with the permission of the Count
      de St. Alyre, would reach his house (the Ch&acirc;teau 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      This, accordingly, I did.
    </p>
    <p>
      You will see, by&#8212;and&#8212;by, why I am obliged to
      mention all these particulars.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Ch&acirc;teau
      de la Carque, and the tumultuous and thrilling influence of
      proximity to the object of my wild but wicked romance.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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
      Ch&acirc;teau 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Tom Whistlewick was in great force; and he commenced almost
      immediately with a very odd story.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 honor 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 <i>bona
      fide</i> necessary to the exhibition, and that the
      disclosures and allusions which had astonished so many people
      were distinctly due to necromancy.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 marvelous it seemed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It certainly was an original joke, though not a very clear
      one," said Whistlewick.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH18"><!-- CH18 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XVIII
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE CHURCHYARD
    </center>
    <p>
      Our 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&#8212;we all felt it. The serenity and
      good nature that follow are more solid and comfortable than
      the tumultuous benevolences of Bacchus.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The story he told was curious.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It happened," said Carmaignac, "as well as I recollect,
      before either of the other cases. A French gentleman&#8212;I
      wish I could remember his name&#8212;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.
      <i>Your</i> apartment, Monsieur. He was by no means
      young&#8212;past forty&#8212;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 <i>modicum
      bonum</i>, you understand&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Pray fill your glass," I said.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Dutch courage, Monsieur, to face the catastrophe!" said
      Whistlewick, filling his own.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Away went the <i>gar&ccedil;on</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And nothing heard since of the epic poet?" I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nothing&#8212;not the slightest clue&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You have now mentioned three cases," I said, "and all from
      the same room."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      My guests happily had engagements in Paris, and left me about
      ten.
    </p>
    <p>
      I went up to my room, and looked out upon the grounds of the
      Ch&acirc;teau 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 tonight. This feeling, be it understood, in
      no wise chilled my ardor. Never had my enthusiasm mounted
      higher. My adventure absorbed and carried me away; but it
      added a strange and stern excitement to the expedition.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Ch&acirc;teau de
      la Carque.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 ch&acirc;teau 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>farouche</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 &Eacute;toile. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I thought I saw a hat above a jagged piece of ruined wall,
      and then a second&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The moon was now shining steadily, pouring down its radiance
      on the soft foliage, and here and there mottling the verdure
      under my feet.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH19"><!-- CH19 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XIX
    </h2>
    <center>
      THE KEY
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 ardor 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,
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      At these words I became eloquent, as young madmen in my
      plight do. She silenced me, however, with the same melancholy
      firmness.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes," she said, "I shall part with them all. I will turn
      them into money and break, forever, the unnatural and wicked
      bonds that tied me, in the name of a sacrament, to a tyrant.
      A man young, handsome, generous, brave, as you, can hardly be
      rich. Richard, you say you 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Tomorrow night," she said, "my husband will attend the
      remains of his cousin, Monsieur de St. Amand, to P&egrave;re
      la Chaise. The hearse, he says, will leave this at half-past
      nine. You must be here, where we stand, at nine o'clock."
    </p>
    <p>
      I promised punctual obedience.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I will not meet you here; but you see a red light in the
      window of the tower at that angle of the ch&acirc;teau?"
    </p>
    <p>
      I assented.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I placed it there, that, tomorrow night, when it comes, you
      may recognize it. So soon as that rose-colored light appears
      at that window, it will be a signal to you that the funeral
      has left the ch&acirc;teau, and that you may approach safely.
      Come, then, to that window; I will open it and admit you.
      Five minutes after a carriage-carriage, with four horses,
      shall stand ready in the <i>porte-coch&egrave;re</i>. 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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      Again I vowed myself her slave.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 in mingling my resources with yours."
    </p>
    <p>
      On this there followed a romantic colloquy, all poetry and
      passion, such as I should in vain endeavor to reproduce. Then
      came a very special instruction.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have come provided, too, with a key, the use of which I
      must explain."
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a double key&#8212;a long, slender stem, with a key at
      each end&#8212;one about the size which opens an ordinary
      room door; the other as small, almost, as the key of a
      dressing-case.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You cannot employ too much caution tomorrow 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&#8212;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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      As she spoke the last word, she, on a sudden, grew deadly
      pale, and gasped, "Good God! who is here?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I made a step backward, drew one of my pistols from my
      pocket, and cocked it. It was obvious he had not seen me.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There's the statue," said the Colonel, in his brief
      discordant tones. "That's the figure."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alluded to in the stanzas?" inquired his companion.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 ch&acirc;teau, striding over the
      grass, as I quickly saw, to the park wall, which they crossed
      not far from the gables of the Dragon Volant.
    </p>
    <p>
      I found the Countess trembling in no affected, but a very
      real terror. She would not hear of my accompanying her toward
      the ch&acirc;teau. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      I have often thanked heaven for its mercy in conducting me
      through the labyrinths in which I had all but lost myself.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH20"><!-- CH20 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XX
    </h2>
    <center>
      A HIGH-CAULD-CAP
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was glad I had my pistols. I certainly was bound by no law
      to allow a ruffian to cut me down, unresisting.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 ch&acirc;teau,
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have lighted a little wood, Monsieur, because the night is
      chill."
    </p>
    <p>
      I thanked her, but she did not go. She stood with her candle
      in her tremulous fingers.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Excuse an old woman, Monsieur," she said; "but what on earth
      can a young English <i>milord</i>, with all Paris at his
      feet, find to amuse him in the Dragon Volant?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>genius
      loci</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "These old eyes saw you in the park of the ch&acirc;teau
      tonight."
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>I</i>!" I began, with all the scornful surprise I could
      affect.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It avails nothing, Monsieur; I know why you stay here; and I
      tell you to begone. Leave this house tomorrow morning, and
      never come again."
    </p>
    <p>
      She lifted her disengaged hand, as she looked at me with
      intense horror in her eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There is nothing on earth&#8212;I don't know what you mean,"
      I answered, "and why should you care about me?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I don't care about you, Monsieur&#8212;I care about the
      honor of an ancient family, whom I served in their happier
      days, when to be noble was to be honored. 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 paneling of my room
      indicated in the plan I had been studying.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH21"><!-- CH21 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XXI
    </h2>
    <center>
      I SEE THREE MEN IN A MIRROR
    </center>
    <p>
      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 &#8212;&#8212;, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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; <i>only</i> two! How on
      earth was I to dispose of the remainder of the day?
    </p>
    <p>
      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, armor, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it
      was dark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a
      piece of inlaid armor, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      marvelously small dimensions considering all it contained,
      strapped in a leather cover which disguised its real
      character.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 favored my design, and darkened all things with a sea of
      clouds.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH22"><!-- CH22 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XXII
    </h2>
    <center>
      RAPTURE
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 favored
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      ch&acirc;teau. 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?
    </p>
    <p>
      Leaning on my box of treasure, gazing toward the massive
      shadow that represented the ch&acirc;teau, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      This icy, snake-like thought stole through my mind, and was
      gone.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was with me the full-blooded season of youth, conscious
      strength, rashness, passion, pursuit, the adventure! Here
      were a pair of double-barreled pistols, four lives in my
      hands? What could possibly happen? The Count&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      As I thus communed with myself, the signal light sprang up.
      The rose-colored light, <i>couleur de rose</i>, emblem of
      sanguine hope and the dawn of a happy day.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 Ch&acirc;teau 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      A shadow from within fell upon the blind; it was drawn aside,
      and as I ascended the steps, a soft voice
      murmured&#8212;"Richard, dearest Richard, come, oh! come! how
      I have longed for this moment!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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 P&egrave;re la Chaise. Here
      were her diamonds. She exhibited, hastily, an open casket
      containing a profusion of the largest brilliants.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What is this?" she asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A box containing money to the amount of thirty thousand
      pounds," I answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What! all that money?" she exclaimed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Every <i>sou</i>."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You have then here this great sum&#8212;are you certain;
      have you counted it?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, certainly; I received it today," I answered, perhaps
      showing a little surprise in my face. "I counted it, of
      course, on drawing it from my bankers."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It makes me feel a little nervous, traveling 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I had hardly done this when a knock was heard at the room
      door.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I know who this is," she said, in a whisper to me.
    </p>
    <p>
      I saw that she was not alarmed. She went softly to the door,
      and a whispered conversation for a minute followed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      She opened the door and looked in.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I must tell her not to take too much luggage. She is so odd!
      Don't follow&#8212;stay where you are&#8212;it is better that
      she should not see you."
    </p>
    <p>
      She left the room with a gesture of caution.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      There I made, quite unexpectedly, a rather startling
      discovery.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH23"><!-- CH23 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XXIII
    </h2>
    <center>
      A CUP OF COFFEE
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <pre>
  PIERRE DE LA ROCHE ST. AMAND.
  &Acirc;G&Eacute; DE XXIII ANS.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Have you seen anything&#8212;anything to disturb you, dear
      Richard? Have you been out of this room?"
    </p>
    <p>
      I answered promptly, "Yes," and told her frankly what had
      happened.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 colored 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 P&egrave;re la
      Chaise should suppose that the funeral was postponed. He knew
      that the remains of poor Pierre would certainly reach this
      tonight, although an unexpected delay has occurred; and there
      are reasons why he wishes the funeral completed before
      tomorrow. 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 <i>porte-coch&egrave;re</i>. As for this
      <i>funeste</i> horror" (she shuddered very prettily), "let us
      think of it no more."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is the last time," she said, in a sweet sad little
      pleading, "I shall ever practice a deception on my brave and
      beautiful Richard&#8212;my hero! Am I forgiven?"
    </p>
    <p>
      Here was another scene of passionate effusion, and lovers'
      raptures and declamations, but only murmured lest the ears of
      listeners should be busy.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;come with me."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      It was excellent; and when I had done she handed me the
      liqueur, which I also drank.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You shall direct, and I obey; you shall command me, not only
      now, but always, and in all things, my beautiful queen!" I
      murmured.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There, you shall have another miniature glass&#8212;a fairy
      glass&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I kissed her hand, I kissed her lips, I gazed in her
      beautiful eyes, and kissed her again unresisting.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You call me Richard, by what name am I to call my beautiful
      divinity?" I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You call me Eugenie, it is my name. Let us be quite real;
      that is, if you love as entirely as I do."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Eugenie!" I exclaimed, and broke into a new rapture upon the
      name.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 handball 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH24"><!-- CH24 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XXIV
    </h2>
    <center>
      HOPE
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 P&egrave;e 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      When he was not speaking his face showed signs of agitation;
      his mouth was puckering and working. He looked damnably
      wicked and frightened.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, my dear Eugenie? Well, child&#8212;eh? Well, it all
      goes admirably?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes," she answered, in a low, hard tone. "But you and
      Planard should not have left that door open."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Planard should have seen to that," said the Count, sharply.
      "<i>Ma foi!</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Monsieur Beckett," he cried sharply, two or three times,
      "Hi! don't you know me?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>mignonne</i>.
      When did it commence?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;five&#8212;six minutes and a
      half," she said slowly, in a cold hard way.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Brava! Bravissima! my beautiful queen! my little Venus! my
      Joan of Arc! my heroine! my paragon of women!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Come, <i>ma ch&egrave;re,</i> let us count these things.
      What is it? Pocket-book? Or&#8212;or&#8212;<i>what?</i>"
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is <i>that</i>!" said the lady, pointing with a look of
      disgust to the box, which lay in its leather case on the
      table.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh! Let us see&#8212;let us count&#8212;let us see," he
      said, as he was unbuckling the straps with his tremulous
      fingers. "We must count them&#8212;we must see to it. I have
      pencil and pocket-book&#8212;but&#8212;where's the key? See
      this cursed lock! My&#8212;! What is it? Where's the key?"
    </p>
    <p>
      He was standing before the Countess, shuffling his feet, with
      his hands extended and all his fingers quivering.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have not got it; how could I? It is in his pocket, of
      course," said the lady.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      <i>r&ocirc;le</i> in it, I could not yet comprehend. I could
      not be sure&#8212;so much more presence of mind and
      histrionic resource have women than fall to the lot of our
      clumsy sex&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Rouleaux of a hundred Napoleons each. One, two, three. Yes,
      quick. Write down a thousand Napoleons. One, two; yes, right.
      Another thousand, <i>write</i>!" And so on and on till the
      gold was rapidly counted. Then came the notes.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ten thousand francs. <i>Write</i>. 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&#8212;go on&#8212;it can't be
      helped&#8212;<i>write</i>&#8212;another ten thousand
      francs&#8212;another&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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-case 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have kept ten thousand francs for Planard," said the
      Count, touching his waistcoat pocket.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Will that satisfy him?" asked the lady.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why&#8212;curse him!" screamed the Count. "Has he no
      conscience? I'll swear to him it's half the entire thing."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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 dispatch
      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&#8212;I
      mean a night-mare in which the objects and the danger are
      real, and the spell of corporal death appears to be
      protractible 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH25"><!-- CH25 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XXV
    </h2>
    <center>
      DESPAIR
    </center>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      My friend d'Harmonville, Planard, whatever he was, came to
      me, pulling off his gloves, which he popped into his pocket.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, doctor, what do you think?" whispered the Count.
    </p>
    <p>
      "How much did you give him?" said the Marquis, thus suddenly
      stunted down to a doctor.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Seventy drops," said the lady.
    </p>
    <p>
      "In the hot coffee?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes; sixty in a hot cup of coffee and ten in the liqueur."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      He looked into my eyes again for awhile, took my wrist, and
      applied his fingers to the pulse.
    </p>
    <p>
      "That action suspended," he said to himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes," he said in soliloquy, very low.
    </p>
    <p>
      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-off sound, raised
      his head, and said, in like manner, softly to himself, "All
      appreciable action of the lungs has subsided."
    </p>
    <p>
      Then turning from the sound, as I conjectured, he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>seventy</i>?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Perfectly," said the lady.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Dearest Eugenie, be frank, be frank, do be frank," urged the
      Count.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am <i>not</i> doubtful, I am <i>certain</i>," she
      answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      "How long ago, exactly? I told you to observe the time."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I did; the minute-hand was exactly there, under the point of
      that Cupid's foot."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The nature and purpose of this tenderness was very, very
      peculiar, and as yet I had not a suspicion of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You leave France, I suppose?" said the ex-Marquis.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, certainly, tomorrow," answered the Count.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And where do you mean to go?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "That I have not yet settled," he answered quickly.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You won't tell a friend, eh?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I can't till I know. This has turned out an unprofitable
      affair."
    </p>
    <p>
      "We shall settle that by-and-by."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is time we should get him lying down, eh," said the
      Count, indicating me with one finger.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, we must proceed rapidly now. Are his night-shirt and
      night-cap&#8212;you understand&#8212;here?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "All ready," said the Count.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      They now, in silence, proceeded to undress me rapidly. They
      were not many minutes in accomplishing this.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="CH26"><!-- CH26 --></a>
    <h2>
      Chapter XXVI
    </h2>
    <center>
      CATASTROPHE
    </center>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 P&egrave;re
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I must not try to recall what is indeed
      indescribable&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The undertaker's men are in the hall," said the Count.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 neighborhood, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The Count de St. Alyre will pardon me," answered Carmaignac,
      a little dryly. "I am forbidden by my instructions to make
      that disclosure; and that I <i>am</i> instructed to make a
      general search, this warrant will sufficiently apprise
      Monsieur le Comte."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;" (he pointed
      to the plate upon the coffin)&#8212;"and to convey whom to
      Pere la Chaise, a hearse waits at this moment at the door."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The body of my kinsman, Monsieur Pierre de St. Amand,"
      answered the Count, loftily.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh! then you've seen him?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Seen him? Often, too often." The Count was evidently a good
      deal moved.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I mean the body?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The Count stole a quick glance at Planard.
    </p>
    <p>
      "N&#8212;no, Monsieur&#8212;that is, I mean only for a
      moment."
    </p>
    <p>
      Another quick glance at Planard.
    </p>
    <p>
      "But quite long enough, I fancy, to recognize him?"
      insinuated that gentleman.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Of course&#8212;of course; instantly&#8212;perfectly. What!
      Pierre de St. Amand? Not know him at a glance? No, no, poor
      fellow, I know him too well for that."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The things I am in search of," said Monsieur Carmaignac,
      "would fit in a narrow compass&#8212;servants are so
      ingenious sometimes. Let us raise the lid."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;that
      desecration."
    </p>
    <p>
      "There shall be none, sir&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But, sir, I can't."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But, Monsieur, I must."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But, besides, the thing, the turnscrew, broke when the last
      screw was turned; and I give you my sacred honor there is
      nothing but the body in this coffin."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Count protested; but Philippe&#8212;a man with a bald
      head and a smirched face, looking like a working
      blacksmith&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I see, I see," said Carmaignac, withdrawing. "Nothing of the
      kind there."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;and&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Count de St. Alyre, you shall go in a very few minutes. I
      will direct, just now, all about the coffin."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Count looked toward the door, and there saw a
      <i>gendarme</i>; 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "In a few minutes;" answered the incorrigible Carmaignac. "I
      must first trouble you for the key that opens that press."
    </p>
    <p>
      He pointed direct at the press in which the clothes had just
      been locked up.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I&#8212;I have no objection," said the Count&#8212;"none, of
      course; only they have not been used for an age. I'll direct
      someone to look for the key."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Here are visiting cards, see, and here a marked
      pocket-handkerchief&#8212;'R.B.' upon it. He must have stolen
      them from a person named Beckett&#8212;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "So he was; you are right, Sir."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It strikes me that he possibly stole these clothes,"
      continued 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      In another moment the old villain was a prisoner. I heard his
      discordant voice break quaveringly into sudden vehemence and
      volubility; now croaking&#8212;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 <i>gendarmes</i> sitting beside them,
      they were immediate driving at a rapid pace towards the
      Conciergerie.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      A search was, of course, instituted. Graves were opened in
      Pere 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 practiced 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 honor, under my pseudonym,
      may have been intended for me.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 reunited, corresponded exactly with the place
      where the fracture had knit in the limb of Gabriel Gaillarde.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;himself among the number&#8212;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 Ch&acirc;teau 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>cause
      c&eacute;l&egrave;bre</i>, with all the
      <i>agr&eacute;mens</i> 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 <i>balourd, a ben&ecirc;t, un &acirc;ne</i>, and
      figured even in caricatures. I became a sort of public
      character, a dignity,
    </p>
    <pre>
  "Unto which I was not born,"
</pre>
    <p>
      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 chateau.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Marquis escaped scot-free. His accomplice, the Count, was
      executed. The fair Eugenie, under extenuating
      circumstances&#8212;consisting, so far as I could discover of
      her good looks&#8212;got off for six years' imprisonment.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 humor. 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 honorable though
      irregular duel, in which he had no disadvantage or unfairness
      to complain of.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      chateau.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;procured from
      a person who supplied the Parisian anatomists&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I divided the remainder of the summer and autumn between
      Switzerland and Italy.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;but not
      till after many years&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>







<pre>





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Room in the Dragon Volant
by J. Sheridan LeFanu

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT ***

This file should be named 8drag10h.htm or 8drag10h.zip
Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8drag11h.htm
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8drag10ah.htm

Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Garcia and PG Distributed Proofreaders

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:
http://gutenberg.net or
http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).


Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03

Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

    1  1971 July
   10  1991 January
  100  1994 January
 1000  1997 August
 1500  1998 October
 2000  1999 December
 2500  2000 December
 3000  2001 November
 4000  2001 October/November
 6000  2002 December*
 9000  2003 November*
10000  2004 January*


The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html


***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart hart@pobox.com

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.


**The Legal Small Print**


(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
     including any form resulting from conversion by word
     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
     *EITHER*:

     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
          does *not* contain characters other than those
          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
          author, and additional characters may be used to
          indicate hypertext links; OR

     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
          OR

     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
          or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
     "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
     let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
hart@pobox.com

[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
they hardware or software or any other related product without
express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*



</pre>

  </body>
</html>
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2025-12-22 14:40:29 +0000