'How,' said I to Rend-your-soul, terrified, 'because
your dogs have devoured your servant, does that prove that they are
well-trained?' I declare, sir," continued the passenger who had related
this story of the buccaneer to the Gascon, "I looked with considerable
alarm upon these ferocious animals who walked round and round me and
smelt at me in a manner far from reassuring."

"The fact is, such customs as these are brutal," said Croustillac, "and
it would be a mistake to address such a man of the woods in the
beautiful language of gallantry. But what the devil can he indulge in in
the way of conversation with Blue Beard?"

"God forbid I should act as eavesdropper," exclaimed the passenger.

"When Rend-your-Soul has said to Blue Beard, 'I have seized a bull on
the lips, and my dogs have devoured my servants,'" replied the Gascon,
"the conversation would languish; and zounds! one cannot always be
feeding a man to the dogs in order to furnish entertainment."

"In faith, one cannot tell," said a listener; "these men are capable of
anything."

"But," said Croustillac, "such an animal can know nothing about small
courtesies; flowery language always takes the ladies."

"No, certainly," replied the narrator, whom we suspect of a slight
exaggeration of the facts, "for he swears enough to sink the island; and
he has a voice like the bellowing of a bull."

"That is easily accounted for; from frequenting their society he has
acquired their accent," said the chevalier; "but let us hear the end of
your story, I beg."

"Here it is. I demanded then of the buccaneer how he dared assert that
dogs who would devour a man were well trained. 'Doubtless,' replied he,
'my dogs are trained never to insert a tooth in a bull when he is down,
for I sell the skins, and they must be intact. Once the bull is dead
these poor brutes, hungry though they be, have the sense to respect it,
and to await its being skinned. Now this morning their hunger was
infernal; my servant was half dead and covered with blood. He was very
inhuman toward them; they began, no doubt, by licking his wounds; then,
as it is said the appetite increases with what it is fed on, this made
the mouths of the poor brutes water. Finally, they did not leave a bone
of my servant. Had it not been for the bite of a serpent which nipped
sharply but which was not venomous, I might have remained in my swoon. I
recovered consciousness; I wrenched the snake from my right leg, round