safeguard to-night. But he may come
from behind, stealing up; and we are dead men if we do not keep our
hands as though about to fire, at the level of our eyes, in front!"

The Persian had hardly finished speaking, when a fantastic face came in
sight ... a whole fiery face, not only two yellow eyes!

Yes, a head of fire came toward them, at a man's height, but with no
body attached to it. The face shed fire, looked in the darkness like a
flame shaped as a man's face.

"Oh," said the Persian, between his teeth. "I have never seen this
before! ... Pampin was not mad, after all: he had seen it! ... What
can that flame be? It is not HE, but he may have sent it! ... Take
care! ... Take care! Your hand at the level of your eyes, in Heaven's
name, at the level of your eyes! ... know most of his tricks ... but
not this one ... Come, let us run ... it is safer. Hand at the level
of your eyes!"

And they fled down the long passage that opened before them.

After a few seconds, that seemed to them like long minutes, they
stopped.

"He doesn't often come this way," said the Persian. "This side has
nothing to do with him. This side does not lead to the lake nor to the
house on the lake ... But perhaps he knows that we are at his heels
... although I promised him to leave him alone and never to meddle in
his business again!"

So saying, he turned his head and Raoul also turned his head; and they
again saw the head of fire behind their two heads. It had followed
them. And it must have run also, and perhaps faster than they, for it
seemed to be nearer to them.

At the same time, they began to perceive a certain noise of which they
could not guess the nature. They simply noticed that the sound seemed
to move and to approach with the fiery face. It was a noise as though
thousands of nails had been scraped against a blackboard, the perfectly
unendurable noise that is sometimes made by a little stone inside the
chalk that grates on the blackboard.

They continued to retreat, but the fiery face came on, came on, gaining
on them. They could see its features clearly now. The eyes were round
and staring, the nose a little crooked and the mouth large, with a
hanging lower lip, very like the eyes, nose and lip of the moon, when
the moon is quite red, bright red.

How did that red moon manage to glide through the darkness, at a man's
height, with nothing to support it, at least apparently? And how did
it go so fa