The operation to be performed was a singular one, and full of the gravest of dangers. However, M. Eliphaste was in the habit of performing the most complicated of psychic operations, and the delicacy of his astral scalpel was universally acknowledged. But the difficulty was the delay.
Had M. Lecamus brought Théophraste earlier, the danger would have been less, but now M. Eliphaste recognized the gravity of the case, and he said that to kill Cartouche without killing Longuet was to tempt God. It was the gravest responsibility.
However, he knew how to lead M. Longuet’s mind quietly and without haste to the subject of his death, and thus he prepared him for death.
He made him live his death the moment that he made him die his death. Then, at the psychological moment, he made a certain gesture, the double sign which precipitated in death the spirit of the dead, and brought back to life the living mind.
These were the details of the operation to be performed, and the preliminaries, which consisted in making Théophraste live through the last months of Cartouche’s life, having been started, M. Eliphaste began asking Théophraste a series of questions. The latter was lying, groaning, on the bed in the laboratory, which was lighted by the hissing scarlet flames.
M. Lecamus and Mme. Longuet sat on a low bench at one side of the room. M. Eliphaste stood beside the bed.
“Where did they take you, Cartouche?”
“In the torture room. My trial is ended. I am condemned to die on the wheel. Before the torture they wish me to confess the names of my accomplices, my friends, my mistresses. I should rather die on the wheel twice! They shall know nothing!”
“And now, where are you, Cartouche?”
“I am going down a small stairway, at the end of the ‘Walk of the Pillory.’ I open a grating. I am in the dark cellars. These dungeons do not frighten me. I know them well! Ah! Ah! I was shut up in that dungeon under Phillippe le Bel!”