"Well, for two days he was so gay that he laughed from night till morning and morning till night."
"I do not see anything bad in that," said Croustillac.
"But wait!" continued the hunter. "My servant did not do this from amusement, he suffered the torments of the damned; his eyes were bursting from their sockets, and he said, between his paroxysms of laughter, that such torture as he endured was beyond belief. The third day he suffered so that he fell as if in a fit, and remained thus a long time; all due to the pinch of madame's gray powder. It may not surprise you to learn that madame's second husband was as gay as a lark, and that he died very joyfully."
"Oh! heavens, as if one could not commit a little mischief without being reproached by you," said Angela, like a capricious child.
"Listen, comrade! she calls that a little mischief," said the hunter. "Just imagine! her second husband laughed so hard that the blood burst from his nose, eyes and ears. But whatever he laughed about, he did so as if he had seen the most amusing thing in the world. But that did not prevent him from saying, like my servant, that he would rather have been burned at a slow fire than suffer such gayety; he also died, laughing to the last, and swearing like a devil."
"There! you go too fast," said Blue Beard, shrugging her shoulders. Then, whispering to the Gascon, "Friend, do not be afraid—I have lost the secret of the gray powder!"
The chevalier, in an attempt to smile, made quite a grimace. He had left France at a time when the fearful practice in poisons was at its height, and people talked only of the heir's powder, the powder of the aged, and the widow's powder. The names, even, of certain poisons were cited with fear. Now Blue Beard's laughing powder could not but give rise to the most doleful reflections on the part of the chevalier. "So," he said to himself, glancing defiantly at Angela, "does this creature deal in chemistry and draughts—is this story true?"
"What ails you, brother?" said the buccaneer, struck by Croustillac's silence.
"You have made him afraid of me," said the widow.
"No, my beautiful lady, no," said Croustillac, "I was thinking that it must be very pleasant to die thus of laughter!"