“I found the count promenading the walk. He was not alone, but was accompanied by a young man with a full Italian face, and who walked and chatted with him while waiting for me.
“For some inexplicable reason my heart began to beat violently when my eye fell upon the count and his companion. With a gesture imposing silence upon me the count whispered—
“‘Come, let us lose no time, but get into the carriage.’
“It was with some astonishment that I noticed that I was not presented to the stranger. Nevertheless, so soon as we were in motion we all began to chat as if we were intimate acquaintances.
“The unknown was a person of charming manners and excellent conversational power. Although somewhat effeminate, he had an air of distinction. He had that dull tinge characteristic of the meridionaux who drink only water.
“He was about twenty-four years of age; he wore a moustache of fine texture and ebon blackness; and his raven hair contrasted singularly with the whiteness of a neck whose shape would have excited the envy of a woman. He was, in short, one of the handsomest of Italians.
“The carriage rolled on for some ten minutes, and was already travelling obscure streets, which to me were wholly unknown.
“While it is true that I had no fear, I ought to say that the singular circumstances of this nocturnal journey awakened an emotion which bordered on inquietude, and which induced me to break out suddenly—
“‘My dear friend, I accepted your proposition with my eyes closed. Now, after all this mystery, will you tell me where you are conducting me?’
“‘Your pardon,’ said the count in a serious tone. ‘I have promised to enable you to assist at a spectacle such as you have never seen, and never will again in all your life; but where this spectacle will take place, I am not permitted to say. I count upon your discretion and rely upon your abstaining from all questions. I have promised you a sensation, and you shall see it; and I guarantee to you that it will be satisfactory as a sensation, for it will be most terrible and most bloody.’