“‘Let us wish, my friend, to reach that domain of the dead. It will be life. For there there are always a number of people. It is much frequented. But we are not there. What is one kilometer of dead men’s bones in five hundred?’
“‘Clearly! How many kilometers do you think we have made, M. Mifroid?’
“‘We have made nine.’
“‘What are nine kilometers in five hundred?’
“I induced M. Longuet not to make these useless calculations, and he begged me to tell him the story of the ‘Jailer’ and that of the ‘Four Soldiers.’
“That made two histories which were not very long in telling. There were only a few words in the first. There was once a jailer of the catacombs who became lost in the catacombs. They found his corpse eight days later. The second related to four soldiers of the Val-de-Graces, who were descending, by the aid of a cord, into a well of eighty meters. They were in the catacombs, and as they did not reappear some drummers were sent down, who made the greatest noise that they could with their drums, but in the catacombs sound does not carry, and no one responded to the rolling. They hunted, and at the end of forty hours they found them dying in a blind alley.
“‘They had no moral courage,’ said Théophraste.
“‘They were foolish,’ I added. ‘Whoever is foolish enough to wander into the catacombs deserves no pity.’
“We were by this time come to a crossway, and M. Longuet turned to ask which way we would follow.
“I could answer him without delay. I said: