"Don't move!" he cried, "or I'll smash you!"
Don Luis was thus reduced to helplessness, at the risk of receiving the enemy's fire.
Their eyes met for a few seconds. The cripple's were burning with fever, like the eyes of a sick man.
Crawling along, watching Don Luis's slightest movement, he came and squatted beside the well. The revolver was levelled in his outstretched hand. And his infernal chuckle rang out again:
"Lupin! Lupin! That's done it! Lupin's dive!… What a mug you must be! I warned you, you know, warned you in blood-red ink. Remember my words: 'The place of your death is chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin!' And here you are! So you're not in prison? You warded off that stroke, you rogue, you! Fortunately, I foresaw events and took my precautions. What do you say to it? What do you think of my little scheme? I said to myself, 'All the police will come rushing at my heels. But there's only one who's capable of catching me, and that's Lupin. So we'll show him the way, we'll lead him on the leash all along a little path scraped clean by the victim's body.'
"And then a few landmarks, scattered here and there. First, the fair damsel's ring, with a blade of grass twisted round it; farther on a flower without its petals; farther on the marks of five fingers in the ground; next, the sign of the cross.' No mistaking them, was there? Once you thought me fool enough to give Florence time to play Hop-o'-my-Thumb's game, it was bound to lead you straight to the mouth of the well, to the clods of turf which I dabbed across it, last month, in anticipation of this windfall.
"Remember: 'The snare is laid.' And a snare after my own style, Lupin; one of the best! Oh, I love getting rid of people with their kind assistance. We work together like friends and partners. You've caught the notion, haven't you?
"I don't do my own job. The others do it for me, hanging themselves or giving themselves careless injections—unless they prefer the mouth of a well, as you seem to do, Lupin. My poor old chap, what a sticky mess you're in! I never saw such a face, never, on my word! Florence, do look at the expression on your swain's mobile features!"
He broke off, seized with a fit of laughter that shook his outstretched arm, imparted the most savage look to his face, and set his legs jerking under his body like the legs of a dancing doll. His enemy was growing weaker before his eyes. Don Luis's fingers, which had first gripped the roots of the grass, were now vainly clutching the stones of the wall. And his shoulders were sinking lower and lower into the well.
"We've done it!" spluttered the villain, in the midst of his convulsions of merriment. "Lord, how good it is to laugh! Especially when one so seldom does. Yes, I'm a wet blanket, I am; a first-rate man at a funeral! You've never seen me laugh, Florence, have you? But this time it's really too amusing. Lupin in his hole and Florence in her grotto; one dancing a jig above the abyss and the other at her last gasp under her mountain. What a sight!