f the world--from the North to the
South, from the rising to the setting sun, from the most barbarous
countries, from the most distant isles, to the centres of civilization,
to France itself. There was not a single country which did not present
some spots marked with these red crosses, evidently indicative of
stations, or serving as points of reference.

Before a table of black wood, loaded with papers, and resting against the
wall near the chimney, a chair stood empty. Further on, between the two
windows, was a large walnut-wood desk, surmounted by shelves full of
pasteboard boxes.

At the end of the month of October, 1831, about eight o'clock in the
morning, a man sat writing at this desk. This was M. Rodin, the
correspondent of Morok, the brute-tamer.

About fifty years of age, he wore an old, shabby, olive greatcoat, with a
greasy collar, a snuff-powdered cotton handkerchief for a cravat, and
waistcoat and trousers of threadbare black cloth. His feet, buried in
loose varnished shoes, rested on a petty piece of green baize upon the
red, polished floor. His gray hair lay flat on his temples, and encircled
his bald forehead; his eyebrows were scarcely marked; his upper eyelid,
flabby and overhanging, like the membrane which shades the eyes of
reptiles, half concealed his small, sharp, black eye. His thin lips,
absolutely colorless, were hardly distinguishable from the wan hue of his
lean visage, with its pointed nose and chin; and this livid mask
(deprived as it were of lips) appeared only the more singular, from its
maintaining a death-like immobility. Had it not been for the rapid
movement of his fingers, as, bending over the desk, he scratched along
with his pen, M. Rodin might have been mistaken for a corpse.

By the aid of a cipher (or secret alphabet) placed before him he was
copying certain passages from a long sheet full of writing, in a manner
quite unintelligible to those who did not possess the key to the system.
Whilst the darkness of the day increased the gloom of the large, cold,
naked-looking apartment, there was something awful in the chilling aspect
of this man, tracing his mysterious characters in the midst of profound
silence.

The clock struck eight. The dull sound of the knocker at the outer door
was heard, then a bell tinkled twice, several doors opened and shut, and
a new personage entered the chamber. On seeing him, M. Rodin rose from
the desk, stuck his pen between his teeth, bowed with a