"I am at your mercy now," he muttered, in a broken voice. "I'm blind."
"What!" I cried.
"Ay," said he, "and my facial extremities are dying fast—pah! my nose is already dead; look." He put up one hand to his face and before my eyes broke off his nose and tossed it on the floor. It snapped like a piece of tinder, leaving a black, ugly stump.
Next he plucked the dagger from his breast—or rather, from where his bosom seemed to be—and cast it on the floor. I was speechless with horror and surprise.
"Now that you have naught to fear from me," he groaned, "if you have a heart in your breast you will help to end my pain."
"Anything, anything—only tell me how!" I cried, advancing towards him as I spoke. But hearing me approaching, he shouted out for me to stop. "Don't come near me!" he wailed. "Don't touch me—or I shall try to murder you—I'll not be able to prevent myself—and I want to undo some of the ill I've done before I die."
I halted. "But what then shall I do?" I asked.
"Light the asbestos fire. You'll find matches in the table drawer. I am perishing of cold, that is the only thing that will soothe the anguish I am going through. Oh! be quick, be quick!"
I flew to obey him, and in a moment I had set the stove ablaze. Belleville found his way to it as if by instinct, and stooping down, he pressed his awful-looking face against the bars, groaning in a way that made my very flesh creep. "Yes—yes, I'm blind," he kept muttering, between his moans. "And very soon I shall be dead. I must atone. I must atone."