“Come, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, compose yourself!”
“Beautrelet—he is there—”
“Eh?”
“Yes—there was something under the big stone that broke off the altar—I pushed the stone—and I touched—I shall never—shall never forget.—”
“Where is it?”
“On this side.—Don’t you notice the smell?—And then look—see.”
He took the candle and held it towards a motionless form stretched upon the ground.
“Oh!” exclaimed Beautrelet, in a horror-stricken tone.
The three men bent down quickly. The corpse lay half-naked, lean, frightful. The flesh, which had the greenish hue of soft wax, appeared in places through the torn clothes. But the most hideous thing, the thing that had drawn a cry of terror from the young man’s lips, was the head, the head which had just been crushed by the block of stone, the shapeless head, a repulsive mass in which not one feature could be distinguished.
Beautrelet took four strides up the ladder and fled into the daylight and the open air.