"Dare to utter my name! Dare to name me!"
Before Bobinette's distracted eyes a terrifying outline showed itself.... The beggar of a moment ago, his cloak removed, his hat thrown to the ground, appeared no more a bent old man: he stood there, upright, young, vigorous, superbly muscular. He was sheathed from head to foot in a tight-fitting garment, black as Erebus!
Bobinette could not see his face, a black hood covered it: two gleaming eyes alone were visible, eyes that to the distraught girl seemed lit by fires from hell!
This vision, the vision of this man without a face, resembling no other man, this apparition with nameless mask, its body like some statue cut from solid darkness, was yet so definite in its mystery that Bobinette, uttering the indescribable cry of some inhuman thing, articulated:
"Fantômas!... You are Fantômas!"
The bandit spoke:
"I am Fantômas!... I am he for whom the entire world is searching, whom none has ever seen, whom none can recognise!... I am Crime incarnated!... I am Night!... No human sees my face, because Crime and Night are featureless!... I am illimitable Power!... I am he who mocks at all the powers, at all the efforts, at all the forces!... I am master of all, of everything; of all times and seasons.... I am Death!... Bobinette, thou hast said it—I am Fantômas."
His wretched listener could not breathe. She felt death in her veins: she felt the earth dissolving into dust.... She sank on her knees.
"Pity, master! Pity!... Fantômas, have pity!"...
"You join those words together!... Fantômas and Pity!"... A furious anger seized the bandit. "Fantômas knows not what mercy is, I tell you!... Fantômas ordains that whoso resist him shall perish—shall disappear!"