I released him, and followed to the lamp-lighted chamber. The other apparition creaked after him, too, and at the door I gave it the precedence. It was well I did so. The sudden light seemed to make Gray bold, for snatching up the other pistol he levelled it at the Simon Pure, and before I could utter a word, fired. The shot must have passed clean through the breast of the Mysterious Stranger—he only bowed.
Gray was now in mortal fear.
"Give up that bill," I said in solemn, pedal tones. He drew it frantically from his pocket, and, leaping up, gave it to the mysterious one.
"Go to th——" he began, with a sort of ferocious recklessness. The next moment he was sprawling on the floor. The Goblin reached out his hand, and struck Gray, as it seemed, lightly with it. I would have raised him. I motioned to do so; but my original touched me on the shoulder, handed me the bill, and motioned to me to follow. I did not like his notes of hand—his signature by mark on Gray's face—I therefore at once obeyed. Le Brun had vanished.
The stranger led me by the old route till we were again close to the tottering cow-house. Here he paused, as on the last occasion, and was, perhaps, preparing to disappear again.
"One moment, sir," I said. "Be good enough to explain yourself more plainly than you did last night. However much I may admire your acting, and it has beaucoup de l'Esprit about it, family arrangements will prevent me from again assisting——"
He nodded as though he quite understood me, advanced to the side of the shed, stopped under a sort of window, and then, deliberately sitting down on the grass, began to pull off his boots. I gazed at him in amazement, and was about to address him again, when a little cloud sailed across the moon, and for a moment shaded all the place. As it passed away, and I looked to our mysterious visitant and my mysterious Original, no remains of him were to be seen—except the boots.
At this moment Le Brun joined me. I was the first (as before and as ever) to throw aside my natural fears, and I advanced to the spot. There were two highly polished Bluchers, side by side, as if they waited till the occupant of the cow-house was out of bed and shaved. I took one of them up. Something inside chinked. I reversed it, and three Napoleons fell upon the turf.
I was wondering why a French farmer-ghost should choose a Blucher to deliver Napoleons into an Englishman's hands, when Le Brun, finding nothing in the other boot, suggested that it would be well to get Gray out of the neighborhood, and perhaps the three Napoleons might be useful to him. To this I agreed at once, though I was somewhat dissatisfied with the little fellow for the small share he had taken in the risks of the evening.
I went to the room where the gambler was; he was evidently in mortal fear. I put down the Napoleons on the table, and then in those deep, pedal, and ecclesiastical notes, which have so often hymned my congregation to repose, informed him that friends of John Finnis were in the town, that he was proclaimed to the authorities, and that he had better leave the neighborhood for ever. With this I left him, joined Le Brun, and was soon on my way back to Honfleur.