ore his eyes the water which alone could
relieve the fever which devoured him. After this often interrupted
interrogation, the sufferer sank back exhausted, and almost insensible.
But, not yet satisfied, his companion conceived the idea of reviving him
with a few drops of brandy, which quickly brought back the fever, and
excited his brain sufficiently to enable him to answer fresh questions.
The doses of spirit were doubled several times, at the risk of ending
the unhappy man's days then and there: Almost delirious, his head
feeling as if on fire, his sufferings gave way to a feverish excitement,
which took him back to other places and other times: he began to recall
the days of his youth and the country where he lived. But his tongue was
still fettered by a kind of reserve: his secret thoughts, the private
details of his past life were not yet told, and it seemed as though he
might die at any moment. Time was passing, night already coming on,
and it occurred to the merciless questioner to profit by the gathering
darkness. By a few solemn words he aroused the religious feelings of the
sufferer, terrified him by speaking of the punishments of another life
and the flames of hell, until to the delirious fancy of the sick man
he took the form of a judge who could either deliver him to eternal
damnation or open the gates of heaven to him. At length, overwhelmed by
a voice which resounded in his ear like that of a minister of God, the
dying man laid bare his inmost soul before his tormentor, and made his
last confession to him.

Yet a few moments, and the executioner--he deserves no other name--hangs
over his victim, opens his tunic, seizes some papers and a few coins,
half draws his dagger, but thinks better of it; then, contemptuously
spurning the victim, as the other surgeon had done--

"I might kill you," he says, "but it would be a useless murder; it would
only be hastening your last Sigh by an hour or two, and advancing my
claims to your inheritance by the same space of time."

And he adds mockingly:--

"Farewell, my brother!"

The wounded soldier utters a feeble groan; the adventurer leaves the
room.

Four months later, a woman sat at the door of a house at one end of the
village of Artigues, near Rieux, and played with a child about nine or
ten years of age. Still young, she had the brown complexion of Southern
women, and her beautiful black hair fell in curls about her face. Her
flashing eyes occasionally betr