"He was silent again; and again I saw the face of M. de la Nox grow intent as once more he concentrated all his being on his astral work. How I wished I had attained a height of psychic development which would have enabled me to follow the wonderful, the miraculous movements of his Astral Scalpel.
"It must have been nearly three-quarters of an hour later that he heaved a deep sigh and said, 'Our work is nearly at an end. Where are you now, Cartouche?'
"'I don't know quite what has happened,' said Theophrastus. 'I hid the document; and I have not seen anyone since. When I open my eyes—it is rather an effort—I do not recognise the place to which they have brought me... I'm certainly not in the Torture-chamber, nor in my cell in Montgomery Tower... There's a faint blue light falling through the bars of a grating in front of me... The moon is coming to visit me... The moonlight has descended two or three of the steps which lead up from the grating... I try to move... I can't... I'm a log. My will no longer commands my muscles or limbs... It's as if all relations between my will and my body had ceased... My brain is only master of my sight and understanding. It is no longer master of my actions... My poor limbs! I feel them scattered round about me... I must have reached the point of suffering at which one suffers no more... But where am I?... The moonlight descends two more steps... And again two more steps... Ah! what is that it lights up?... An eye—a big eye... The moonlight moves... A skull... The moonlight moves... A bony hand!... I understand! I understand! They have thrown me into a common grave!... The moonlight moves... There are two legs of a dead man lying across my body!... I recognise those steps now!... And that grating!... I am in the charnel-house of Montfaucon!... I am frightened!
"'When I used to go up the street of the Dead to carouse at the Chopinettes, I often looked through that grating. I looked through it curiously because I saw that one day I should lie in the charnel-house. But never did it occur to me that when a body lay there, it could look out from the other side of the grating! And now my body looks out through it! They have thrown me into the charnel-house because they believed me dead! I am buried alive with the bodies of hanged men! My wretched fate surpasses anything that the imagination of men could invent!
"'The saddest reflections assail me. I ask myself by what trick of Fate I am reduced to such an extremity. I am forced to confess that Fate played no part in the matter. It was my pride, nothing but my accursed pride. I could have quietly remained King of all the robbers, if there had been any living with me. Pretty-Milkmaid was right when she said at the Queen Margot that there was no longer any living with me. I would no longer listen to a word from anyone; and when I called together my Grand Council, I took no notice whatever of the resolutions it passed. I took a delight in playing the despot; and I ended with that mania for cutting up everyone I suspected into little bits. My lieutenants ran greater risks in serving me than in disobeying me. They betrayed me; and it was quite logical. Oh, it's quite time for these reflections, now that I'm in the charnel-house!
"'I'm alive in this charnel-house, alive among the dead; and for the first time in my life I am frightened.'
"Theophrastus was silent for a minute; and we looked at one another with harried eyes. Then in the same mournful, plaintive tones he took up his tale again.
"'It's odd—very odd. Now that I'm on the very boundary of life and death my senses perceive things which they could not perceive when I was in health. My ears hear no more—that boiling water destroyed my hearing—yet they do hear. There is a footfall, a slinking footfall on the steps leading down to the grating... Suddenly the moon ceases to light the charnel-house... Then I see between me and the moon on the steps of the charnel-house, a man! a living man!... Maybe I am saved! I wanted to cry aloud with joy; and perhaps I should have cried aloud, if the horror of what I feel, of what I know, had not sealed my lips. I feel, I know that this man has come to rob me of my hand... I read it, clearly, in his brain. A lady of the Court has sent him for the charm—the charm to keep her husband's love—the hand of a murderer—the hand of Cartouche!
"'I read it in his brain as clearly as if I read it written... He is lighting a lantern... He has unlocked the grating and entered the charnel-house... He has found my body, and is stooping over it... He has taken my left hand in his left hand, and his knife gleams in the light of the lantern... He is cutting through my wrist... I do not feel the blade in my wrist; I see it... Ah! I begin to feel the knife!... Oh! My wrist! My wrist!... It is nearly severed... Ah! Ah! Ah!... It is severed!
"'What is this... The man howls... He is dancing about among the dead... I see! I see... My hand has come away in the left hand of the man who howls, but by a last miracle of the last life in my wrist, as it was severed, my hand gripped the hand of the man who howls!... Ha! Ha! he can't get rid of it!... It's gripped him!... How it grips him!... He is dragging at it with his right hand!... He can't stir it!... Ah, it isn't easy to rid oneself of a dead man's last grip!... He is out of the charnel-house, howling!... He bounds up the steps, howling!... As he goes, howling, he is waving, like a madman, in the moonlight, my gripping hand!'