It sent new life through me. The pain of swallowing was as nothing to the delight it gave me. I lay still a moment looking up at her; then I sat erect unsteadily.
“What is it?” I asked hoarsely. “What has happened to me?”
“Then you are not dead!” she cried. “Then you are going to live! Oh, thank God!”
“Dead!” I repeated in amazement. “No—nor like to be!”
Then my eyes fell upon an object at my feet, and in a flash I remembered. I sat for a moment looking down at that huddled shape, touched here and there into hideous distinctness by the rays of the moon.
“But even yet I do not understand,” I said at last. “What killed him? A bolt from heaven? God saves me for my vengeance then!”
She did not answer, only huddled her head into her arms and swayed forward, shaken by a convulsive shuddering.
I leaned down and looked at the body. Was it blasted, shrivelled as in a furnace? Had I really been saved by God’s intervention? And how else, I asked myself; what less than a miracle could have saved me?
The body was lying on its face, and as I stared down at it, I fancied I saw something protruding from the back. I touched it—it was the handle of a knife. I drew it forth, not without some effort, and recognized the knife as mine—Pasdeloup’s—the knife I had used to cut the bread—the knife I had left lying in the hollow beside the bottles. Then I understood.
“You!” I cried, staring at the bowed figure. “You!”