“Not to-night,” he said, in answer to my request, “but sometime. Sometime when I can prove to you my right to the title, I will tell you why they used to call me The Prophet. For, sometime, the gift will come back to me again.” He leaned over the table and looked me full in the face with those unnaturally bright eyes as he whispered: “It is coming back soon, I can feel it. The false prophet shall redeem himself.”
I did not see the man again for many weeks, for I was busy with other things. One night, however, I dropped into the place and seated myself in a corner. I had scarcely taken off my gloves when I felt some one touch me on the shoulder, and, as I looked up, I saw the Prophet standing near. I scarcely recognized him, he was so changed. His cheeks had great sunken places in them, and the skin had a waxy and corpse-like appearance. But his eyes were brighter than ever before as he said, eagerly:
“It has come back again, as I told you it would. To-night I will tell you the story you wished to know before. Where have you been so long?”
I told him that I had been very busy since I last saw him, and, ordering a bottle of his favorite drink, I waited with interest for what I felt must prove a strange and interesting tale. He waited till the liquor came, and, after taking a deep draught, he told me the following story:
“You have probably heard the men here telling how I used to be a prophet and could foretell events, and that once I failed. What you have not heard, though, is how I came to fail; but I will tell you to-night. I did not always have the gift, neither did I study and cultivate it. It came to me as an inspiration,—and I abused that gift,” he added, sadly.
“The first time was just before de Arnault was killed. As I sat at this very table drinking, a peculiar feeling came over me, a kind of exaltation. I seemed to be drifting out of myself and to have no part with my surroundings. Then, gradually, I began to see a great crowd in a public square. A man was sitting in a carriage near the Arch of Triumph, reviewing some troops. I could not see his face, for there was a mist about it. Suddenly, out of the crowd, I saw a man working his way toward the carriage. He reached it, and, drawing a revolver from his pocket, he fired three shots full at the breast of the man in the carriage. Then the mist which had been about his face cleared, and I recognized the Count de Arnault.
“When I came to myself the waiter was standing by my chair asking if I were ill. I must have been acting queerly, for as I went out everyone looked at me curiously.
“Someway, strange as it probably seems to you, I did not pay much attention to the vision, for my brain is not exactly right, and I see many things after I have been drinking which would frighten most men. Imagine my horror a week later, however, when, as the Count was reviewing the Imperial troops at the Place de la Concorde, I saw enacted in reality what I had seen in my vision.
“Then, for a year, I had those strange visitations, during which future events were revealed to me exactly as they were to occur. I gained a reputation here in the Rivola, for during the Franco-Prussian war I foretold the defeat of the army at Saarbruck, the retreats at Weissenburg and Worth, the capitulation of Metz, and the fatal disaster at Sedan. It was this war that was my ruin. The money which before I could scarcely scrape together came to me now by the purse. I was consulted on every great occasion, and my prophecies were paid for in gold.
“Do you realize what a gift I had?” he cried, becoming excited. “I could have done anything, been anything I wished. My fame extended beyond the humble Rivola. I was sought after by all classes, from the lowest to the highest.”