The new terror

CAPTAIN MICHEL had but one arm, which he found useful when he lit his pipe. He was an old sea dog whose acquaintance, with that of four other old salts, I made one evening on the open front of a café in the Vieille Darse, Toulon, where I was taking an appetizer. And in this way we fell into the habit of foregathering over a glass within a stone’s throw of the rippling waves and the swinging dingeys, about the hour when the sun sinks behind Tamaris.

The four old marines were known as Zinzin, Dorat—Captain Dorat—Bagatelle, and Chanlieu—that old fellow Chanlieu. They had, of course, sailed every sea and met with a thousand adventures; and now that they were retired on their pensions, they spent their time telling each other terrible tales.

Captain Michel alone never indulged in any reminiscences. And as he seemed in no way surprised by anything he heard, his old comrades in the end grew exasperated with him.

“Look here, Captain Michel, hasn’t anything out of the way ever happened to you?”

“Oh, yes,” the captain made answer, taking his pipe from his mouth. “Yes, something happened to me once—just once.”

“Well, let’s have it.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too awful. You might not be able to stand it. I’ve often tried to tell the story but people have slipped away before I finished it.”

The four sea dogs vied with each other in the loudness of their guffaws, declaring that Captain Michel was trying to find some excuse, because in reality, nothing extraordinary had ever happened to him.

The old fellow stared at them a moment, and then suddenly accepting the situation, laid his pipe on the table. This unusual gesture was in itself startling!

“Messieurs, I’ll tell you how I lost my arm,” he began.

“In those days—some twenty years ago—I owned a small villa, in the suburb of Le Mourillon, which had been left to me, for my family were long settled in these parts and I myself was born here.

“It suited me to take a little rest after a long voyage and before setting sail again. For that matter, I rather liked the place, and lived quite peaceably among sea-faring men and colonials who troubled me very little, and whom I rarely saw, occupied as they were as a rule in opium-smoking with their lady friends, or with other business which did not concern me. Of course there is no accounting for tastes, but as long as they didn’t interfere with me, I was satisfied....

“It so happened that one night they did interfere with my habit of going to sleep. I was awakened with a start by an extraordinary uproar, the meaning of which I couldn’t possibly make out. I had left my window open as usual. I listened in a state of bewilderment to a tremendous din, which was a cross between the rumbling of thunder and the roll of a drum, but such a drum! It was as though a couple of hundred drumsticks were being madly beaten, not on ordinary drum-skin, but on a wooden drum.

“The disturbance came from the villa opposite, which had been empty for some five years, and on which I had noticed, the previous evening, a board bearing the announcement: ‘To be sold.’

“I let my gaze stray from the window of my bedroom, on the first floor, beyond the small garden in which the house stood, and my eye took in every door and window, even the doors and windows on the ground floor. They were still closed as I had seen them during the day; but I caught sight of gleams of light through the chinks in the shutters on the ground floor. Who and what were these people? How had they found their way into this solitary house at the far end of Le Mourillon? What sort of company was it that had obtained admission into this deserted dwelling, and why were they kicking up such a shindy?

“The extraordinary din, like the thunderous beating of a wooden drum, continued. It went on for another hour, and then as dawn was breaking, the front door opened, and there appeared in the doorway the most radiant creature that I have ever beheld. She was clad in a low-necked dress, and held with perfect grace a lamp whose beams fell over the shoulders of a goddess. I distinctly heard her say in the echoing night, while a kind and quiet smile flickered across her face:

“‘Good-bye, dear friend, till next year.’

“To whom was she speaking? It was impossible for me to tell for I could see no one standing beside her. She remained at the entrance holding the lamp for some minutes, until the garden gate opened by itself and closed by itself. Then the front door of the house was shut in its turn, and I saw nothing more.

“It seemed to me that I was either losing my head or was the sport of a dream, for I knew that it was out of the question for any one to pass through the garden without my perceiving him.

“I was still planted at the window, incapable of the least movement or thought, when the door of the house opened a second time, and the same vision of beauty appeared still carrying a lamp and still alone.

“‘Hush,’ she said, ‘don’t make a noise, any of you. We mustn’t disturb our neighbor opposite. I’ll come with you.’

“And silently and alone she crossed the garden and stopped at the gate on which the full rays of the lamp shone; so much so, indeed, that I clearly saw the knob of the gate turn of its own accord without any hand being placed upon it. And the gate opened once again by itself in the presence of this woman who, moreover, did not evince any surprise. Need I explain that from where I was posted, I could see both in front and behind the gate; in other words, that I saw it sideways?

“This ‘splendid apparition’ made a charming movement of her head toward the empty darkness which the glare of the lamp made visible; then she smiled and said:

“‘Well, good-bye until next year. My husband is very pleased. Not a single one of you failed to answer the call. Good-bye, messieurs.’

“And I heard several voices in unison:

“‘Good-bye, madame, good-bye, dear madame, until next year.’

“And as the mysterious hostess was preparing to close the door herself, I heard a voice:

“‘Oh, please, don’t trouble.’

“And the door was once more closed.

“The next moment the air was filled with a curious sound; it was like the chirping of a flock of birds, and it seemed as if this beautiful woman had opened the cage of a whole brood of house sparrows.

“She quietly walked back to the house. The lights on the ground floor were then out, but I noticed a glimmer in the windows of the first floor.

“When she reached the house she said:

“‘Are you upstairs, Gérard?’

“I could not hear the answer, but the front door was again closed, and a few minutes later the light on the first floor went out.

“I was still standing at my window at eight o’clock in the morning, staring in blank amazement at the house and garden which had revealed such strange happenings in darkness, and which now in the full light of day assumed their familiar aspect. The garden was a waste, and the house itself seemed as desolate as it was the day before.

“So much so, indeed, that when I told my old charwoman who had just come, of the queer events which I had witnessed, she tapped my forehead with her dirty forefinger and muttered that I had smoked one pipe too many. Now I have never been a smoker of opium, and her answer gave me a good opportunity of sacking the old sloven whom I had for some time wanted to get rid of, and who came for a couple of hours each day to ‘clean up’ the place for me. For that matter I did not need any one, as I was setting sail again next day.

“I barely had time to put my things together, make a few purchases, say farewell to my friends, and catch the train for Havre. I had fixed up an appointment with the Transatlantic company which would keep me away from Toulon for some eleven or twelve months.

“In due course I returned to Toulon, but though I had refrained from mentioning my adventure to a soul, I still continued to think of it. The vision of the lady of the lamp obsessed me wherever I went, and the last words which she uttered to her unseen friends still rang in my ears:

“‘Well, good-bye until next year.’

“And I never ceased to think of the meeting. I, too, was determined to be there and to discover, at whatever cost, the solution of a mystery which was intensely perplexing to a sensible man like myself, who did not believe in ghosts or phantom vessels.

“Unfortunately I was soon to learn that neither heaven nor hell was concerned in the terrible story.

“It was six o’clock in the evening when I set foot again in my house at Toulon; and it was two days before the anniversary of the wonderful night.

“The first thing that I did on going inside was to run up to my room and open the window. It was summer and broad daylight, and my eyes at once fell upon a lady of great beauty who was placidly walking about gathering flowers in the garden of the house opposite. At the noise made by the opening window she looked up.

“It was the lady of the lamp. I recognized her, and she seemed not less beautiful by day than by night. Her skin was as white as the teeth of an African nigger, her eyes bluer than the waters at Tamaris, her hair as soft and fair as the finest flax.

“Why should I not make the confession? When I beheld this woman of whom I had been dreaming for a year, a strange feeling came over me. She was no illusion of a diseased imagination. She stood before me in the flesh; and every window of the house was open and flower-bedecked by her hands. There was nothing fantastic in all this.

“She caught sight of me and at once displayed some degree of annoyance. She walked a few steps farther in the center path of the garden, and then shrugging her shoulders as though she were disconcerted said:

“‘Let’s go in, Gérard. I’m beginning to feel the coolness of the night.’

“I let my gaze stray round the garden. I could perceive no one. To whom was she speaking?... Nobody there!

“Then was she mad? It scarcely seemed so.

“I watched her return to the house. She passed into it, the door was closed, and she at once shut the windows.

“I did not see or hear anything worth noticing that night. Next morning at ten o’clock I observed my neighbor leaving the garden attired as if for a walk. She locked the gate after her and set out in the direction of Toulon.

“I started off in my turn. Pointing to the fashionably dressed figure in front of me I asked the first tradesman whom I met if he knew the lady’s name.

“‘Why, of course. She’s your neighbor. She is living with her husband at the Villa Makoko. They moved in about a year ago, just as you went away. They are regular boors. They never speak to anybody, unless it’s absolutely necessary, but every one in Le Mourillon, as you know, goes his own way, and is never surprised at anything. The captain for one....’

“‘What captain?’

“‘Captain Gérard. It seems he is an ex-captain of marines. Well, no one ever sees him.... Sometimes when food has to be delivered at the house, and the lady is not in, some person shouts out an order from behind the door to leave the stuff on the step, and waits until you are a good distance away before taking it in.’

“You can imagine that I was growing more and more puzzled. I went to Toulon in order to ask the agent who let the villa a few questions about these people. He, likewise, had never seen the husband, but he told me that his name was Gérard Beauvisage.

“When I heard the name I uttered a cry: ‘Gérard Beauvisage! Why I know him!’

“I had an old friend of that name whom I had not seen for twenty-five years. He was an officer in the marines and had left Toulon for Tonkin about that period. How could I doubt that it was he? At all events, I had a straightforward reason for calling on him, that very evening, though he was expecting a visit from his friends, for it was the anniversary of the famous night. I made up my mind to renew my old friendship with him.

“When I got back to Le Mourillon I espied in front of me, in the sunk road leading to the Villa Makoko, the figure of my neighbor. I did not hesitate, but hastened to overtake her.

“‘Have I the honor of speaking to Madame Beauvisage, the wife of Captain Gérard Beauvisage?’ I asked with a bow.

“She colored and tried to pass on without answering me.

“‘Madame, I am your neighbor, Captain Michel Alban,’ I persisted.

“‘Oh, please forgive me, monsieur,’ she returned, ‘my husband has often spoken of you ... Captain Michel Alban....’

“She seemed terribly ill at ease, and yet in her confusion she was more beautiful than ever, if that were possible. In spite of her obvious desire to elude me I went on:

“‘How comes it that Captain Beauvisage has returned to France without letting his old friend know? I shall be particularly obliged if you will tell Gérard that I’m coming to shake hands with him this very evening.’

“And observing that she was hastening her steps, I bowed, but as I was speaking she turned round, betraying an agitation which was more and more difficult to comprehend.

“‘Impossible to-night.... I promise to tell Gérard of our meeting. That’s the most I can do. Gérard doesn’t wish to see any one—any one. He lives alone.... We live alone.... And we took the house because we were told that the next house was occupied only for a few days once or twice a year by some one who is never seen!...’

“And she added in a voice tinged with sadness:

“‘You must forgive Gérard, monsieur. We do not receive any one—any one. Good day, monsieur.’

“‘Madame, the Captain and you receive friends occasionally,’ I returned with some impatience. ‘For instance, to-night you are expecting friends with whom you made an appointment a year ago.’

“She flushed scarlet.

“‘Oh, but that’s an exceptional case ... that’s an absolutely exceptional case.... They are our very particular friends.’

“Having said which she made her escape, but at once stopped her retreat and turned back.

“‘Whatever you do, don’t call to-night,’ she entreated, and disappeared into the garden.

“I returned to my house and began to keep watch on my neighbors. They did not show themselves, and long before it was dark I saw the shutters being closed and lights gleaming through the openings, such as I had seen on that amazing night a year ago. But I did not hear the same extraordinary din like the thunderous beating of a wooden drum.

“At seven o’clock I began to dress for I called to mind the low-necked robe worn by the lady of the lamp. Madame Beauvisage’s last words had but strengthened my determination. The captain was seeing some of his friends that evening; he dared not refuse me admission. After dressing it crossed my mind, before I went downstairs, to put my revolver in my pocket, but in the end I left it in its place, considering that to take it would be an act of stupidity.

“The stupidity lay in not taking it with me.

“On reaching the entrance to the Villa Makoko I turned the handle of the gate on the off chance—the handle which last year I had seen turn by itself. And to my intense surprise the door opened. Therefore my neighbors were expecting visitors. I walked up to the house and knocked at the door.

“‘Come in!’ a voice cried.

“I recognized Gérard’s voice. I walked gaily into the house. I passed first through the hall, and then as the door of a small drawing-room stood open, and the room was lit up, I entered it.

“‘Gérard it’s me,’ I exclaimed, ‘your old pal Michel Alban.’

“‘Oh, really, so you made up your mind to come, my dear old Michel! I told my wife only just now that you would come and I should be glad to see you.... But you are the only one, apart from our particular friends.... Do you know, my dear Michel, you haven’t altered much....’

“It would be impossible for me to describe my stupefaction. I heard Gérard, but I could not see him. His voice rang in my ears, but no one was near me, no one was in the drawing-room. The Voice went on:

“‘Sit down, won’t you? My wife will soon be here, for she will remember that she left me on the mantelpiece!’

“I looked up, and then discovered above me ... above me resting on a high mantelpiece—a bust.

“It was this bust which had been speaking. It resembled Gérard. It was Gérard’s body. It had been placed there as people are wont to place busts on mantelpieces. It was a bust like those carved by sculptors, that is to say, it was without arms.

“‘I can’t shake hands with you, my dear Michel,’ the voice went on, ‘for as you see I have no hands, but if you raise yourself on tiptoe you will be able to take me in your arms and place me on the table. My wife put me up here in a moment of temper, because she said I was in the way when she swept the room. She’s a funny thing is my wife.’

“And the bust burst out laughing.

“It seemed to me that I was the victim of an optical illusion as happens in those entertainments where you behold living heads and shoulders suspended in mid-air, the result of tricks with mirrors; but after setting down my friend on the table, as he requested, I had to admit that this head and body without arms or legs was indeed all that remained of the excellent officer whom I had known in days gone by. His body was resting on a small wheeled platform, such as are used by cripples without legs, but Gérard did not possess even the stumps of legs which can be seen in the case of most cripples. To think that my old friend was nothing but a bust!

“Small hooks took the place of arms, and language fails me to describe how, leaning for support on a hook here, or on another there, he set to work to hop, skip and jump and perform a hundred swift movements which shot him from the table to a chair, from a chair to the floor, and then suddenly made him appear on the table once more, where he indulged in the gayest chatter.

“Myself, I was in a state of consternation. I was rendered speechless. I watched this freak perform his antics and say with a chuckle which alarmed me:

“‘I have greatly changed I daresay. You must admit, my dear Michel, that you hardly recognize me. You did quite right to call this evening. We shall see some sport. We have a few very special friends, and, you know, apart from them I don’t care to meet any one—merely as a matter of pride. We don’t even keep a servant. Wait for me here. I must get into my smoking jacket.’

“He went off, and almost at once the lady of the lamp appeared. She wore the same low-necked dress of the year before. As soon as her eyes fell upon me, she seemed strangely perturbed, and said in a strained voice:

“‘Oh, so you are here! You’ve made a mistake, Captain Michel. I gave your message to my husband, but I forbade you to call this evening. I may tell you that when he learnt that you were in this place, he asked me to invite you this evening, but I did no such thing because,’ she went on, ill at ease, ‘I had good reasons. We have certain very particular friends who are rather a worry—they are very fond of noise—uproar. You must have heard them last year,’ she added, giving me a look out of the corner of her eye. ‘Well, promise me to leave early.’

“‘I promise to leave early, madame,’ I returned, and yet a vague misgiving took possession of me at this conversation, the meaning of which I was far from understanding. ‘I promise you faithfully, but can you tell me how it is that I find my old friend in such a state? What terrible accident happened to him?’

“‘None at all, monsieur, none.’

“‘What do you mean, “none at all”? Don’t you know anything about the accident which deprived him of arms and legs? Yet he must have met with it since your marriage.’

“‘No, monsieur, no. I married the captain as he is now.... But excuse me, our guests will be here presently, and I must help my husband to put on his smoking jacket.’

“She left me to myself, dazed by the one stupefying thought: ‘She married the captain as he is now!’ and almost at once I heard sounds in the hall, the curious sounds which had accompanied the lady of the lamp to the garden gate and baffled me last year. This noise was followed by the appearance, on their wheeled platforms, of four cripples without arms or legs who stared at me in wonder. They were all attired in perfectly-fitting evening dress with snow-white shirt fronts.

“One wore gold-rimmed pince-nez, another, an old man, spectacles, the third a single eyeglass, and the fourth was content to gaze at me out of his own proud, shrewd eyes with an expression of boredom. All four, however, saluted me with their little hooks, and asked after Captain Beauvisage. I told them that he was dressing, and Madame Beauvisage was quite well. When I took the liberty of speaking of Madame Beauvisage, I caught an exchange of glances between them which seemed to embody a certain raillery.

“‘Haw, haw, I presume you are a great friend of our good old captain,’ drawled the cripple with the monocle.

“The others smiled with a look which was by no means pleasant, and then they all started to talk in the same breath:

“‘Sorry, sorry, monsieur.... We are quite naturally surprised to meet you at the house of the good old captain, who swore on his wedding day to shut himself up in the country with his wife, and not to receive any one—any one but his very special friends, you understand. When one is so thoroughly a cripple as the captain consented to be, and is married to such a beautiful woman, it is quite natural—quite natural. But, after all, if in the course of his life he met a man of honor who does not happen to be a cripple, we’re glad of it.... We congratulate you.’

“And they repeated: ‘We’re glad of it.... We congratulate you.’

“Lord how odd they were, these dwarfs! I watched them and held my peace. Others arrived in twos and threes and so on. And they all contemplated me with a look of surprise or uneasiness or irony. For my part I was rendered speechless by the spectacle of so many cripples without arms or legs; for after all I was beginning to see through most of the extraordinary happenings which had so greatly stirred my mind; and though the cripples, by their presence, explained many things, the presence of the cripples still required explanation, as also did the monstrous union of that splendid woman with that awful shred of humanity.

“True, I realized now that these little ambulating trunks were bound to pass unperceived by me in the narrow garden path lined with verbena, and the road running between two low hedges; and, truth to tell, when at the time I said to myself that it was impossible to avoid seeing any person going down those paths, I had in mind persons who would be standing upright on their two legs.

“The handle of the garden gate itself no longer puzzled me, and in my mind’s eye I saw the invisible hook which had turned it.

“The peculiar noise which I heard was but the creaking made by the small badly oiled wheels of these cars for freaks. Finally, the extraordinary sound like the thunderous beating of a wooden drum, was obviously caused by the many cars and hooks striking the floor when, after an excellent dinner, our friends the cripples indulged in a dance.

“Yes, all this was capable of explanation, but I was conscious as I caught a curious eager gleam in their eyes, and heard the peculiar sound of their nippers, that something terrible still remained to be cleared up, and that all else which had surprised me was of no account.

“Meanwhile Madame Beauvisage promptly appeared, accompanied by her husband. They were greeted with shouts of delight. The little hooks ‘applauded’ them with an infernal din. I was deafened by it. Then I was introduced. Cripples were all over the place: on the tables, chairs, stools, on stands usually occupied by vases, on the sideboard. One of them sat on the shelf of a dresser like a Buddha in his recess. And each one politely held out his hook to me. They seemed for the most part people of good position, with titles and names indicating their relationship to aristocratic families, but I learned afterwards that these were false names given to me for reasons which will be obvious. Lord Wilmer certainly maintained the best front of them all, with his fine golden beard and no less fine mustache which he continually stroked with his hook. He did not leap from chair to table like the others, nor did he have the air of a huge bat taking wing from wall to wall.

“‘We are only waiting for the doctor,’ said the mistress of the house, who every now and then gave me a look of obvious gloom, but quickly resumed her smile for her guests.

“The doctor arrived. He was a cripple but he possessed both arms.

“He offered one of them to Madame Beauvisage and led her to the dining-room. I mean that she touched his arm with the tips of her fingers.

“Covers were laid in the room with the closed shutters. The table, which was laden with flowers and hors d’œuvre, was illuminated by a large candelabrum. There was no fruit. The dozen cripples at once leapt upon their chairs and began to pick greedily from the dishes with their hooks. It was not a pleasant sight, and I marveled at the voracity with which these trunks of men, who seemed just before so well-mannered, devoured their food.

“And then suddenly they quietened down; their hooks kept still, and it seemed to me that they lapsed into what is usually described as a ‘painful silence.’

“Every eye was turned on Madame Beauvisage, whose husband sat by her side, and I noticed that she buried her face in her napkin, looking very uncomfortable. Then my friend Gérard, clapping one hook against the other with a flourish, said:

“‘Well, my dear old friends, it can’t be helped. One doesn’t meet the luck of last year every day. But don’t distress yourselves. With the exercise of a little imagination we shall succeed in being as merry as we were then....’

“And turning to me as he lifted the small handle of the glass which stood on the table before him:

“‘Your health my dear Michel. To us all!’

“And each man raised his glass by its handle with the end of his hook. The glasses swung over the table in the quaintest fashion.

“My host went on:

“‘You don’t seem to be equal to the occasion, my dear Michel. I have known you in merrier mood, more up to the mark. Is it because we are “like this” that you are so gloomy? What do you expect? We are what we are. But let us have some amusement. We are met together here, all of us very special friends, to celebrate the time when we became “like this.” Is that not true my friends of the Daphné?...’

“Then my old comrade,” Captain Michel went on to explain, heaving a deep sigh, “told us how the Daphné, which sailed between France and the Far East, was wrecked; how the crew escaped in the boats, and how these miserable people took refuge on a chance raft.

“Miss Madge, a beautiful young girl who lost her parents in the catastrophe, was also picked up by the raft. Some thirteen persons in all were on it, and at the end of three days the victuals were consumed, and at the end of a week the survivors were dying of hunger. It was then that, as the old song says, they agreed to draw lots as to ‘which should be eaten.’

“Messieurs,” added Captain Michel, in a serious voice, “such things have happened more often perhaps than they have been talked about, for the great blue waters close over these peculiar feats of digestion.

“They were on the point, therefore, of drawing lots on the raft when the doctor’s voice was heard: ‘Mesdames and Messieurs,’ said the doctor, ‘you have lost all your belongings in the wreck of the ship, but I have saved my case of instruments and my forceps for arresting hemorrhage. This is my suggestion: There is no object in any one of us running the risk of being eaten as a whole. Let us, to begin with, draw lots for an arm or leg at will, and we will then see to-morrow what the day brings forth, and perhaps a sail may appear on the horizon.’”

At this point in Captain Michel’s story the four old salts, who up to this had not interrupted, cried:

“Well done!”

“What do you mean ‘well done’?” asked Captain Michel with a frown.

“Yes, ‘well done!’ Your story is a good joke. These people were ready to lose an arm or leg in turn.... That’s a good joke, but there’s nothing frightful about it.”

“So you really find it a good joke!” growled the Captain, bristling with annoyance. “Well, I swear that if you had been seated among all those cripples whose eyes were bulging like live coal, and heard the story, you wouldn’t have found it such a good joke.... And if you had noticed how restless they were in their chairs! And how vigorously they clasped hooks across the table with an obvious delight which I couldn’t make out, but which was none the less frightful for all that.”

“No, no,” broke in Chanlieu once more—that old fellow Chanlieu—“your story is not in the least frightful. It is funny simply because it is logical. Would you like me to tell you the end of the story? You shall say whether I am right or not. The people on the raft drew lots. The lot fell to Miss Madge who was to lose one of her beautiful limbs. Your friend the captain, who is a gentleman, offered his own instead, and he had his four limbs amputated so that Miss Madge should remain unscathed.”

“Yes, old man, you’ve got it. That is so,” exclaimed Captain Michel, who felt a longing to break the heads of these imbeciles who treated his story as a good joke. “Yes, and what’s more, when it was a question of cutting off Miss Madge’s limbs after the survivors, except the young lady and the doctor—who had been left with both arms because they were wanted—had lost all their limbs, Captain Beauvisage had the pluck to have the poor stumps left from the first operation, cut off on a level with his body.”

“And the young lady could do no other than offer the Captain her hand which he had so heroically saved,” interposed Zinzin.

“Why, of course,” growled the Captain in his beard. “And you consider it a good joke!”

“Did they eat all those limbs quite raw?” inquired that ass of a Bagatelle.

Captain Michel struck the table such a resounding blow that the glasses danced like rubber balls.

“That’ll do, shut up,” he exclaimed. “All that I’ve told you is nothing. Now comes the frightful part of it.”

The four friends looked at each other smiling, and Captain Michel grew pale, whereupon seeing that they had carried matters too far they hung their heads.

“Yes, the frightful part of it,” went on Michel with his gloomiest air, “was that these people who were only rescued a month later by a Chinese sailing vessel which landed them somewhere on the Yang-Tse-Kiang where they separated—the frightful part of it was that these people retained a taste for human flesh, and when they returned to Europe arranged to meet together once a year to renew as far as possible the abominable banquet. Well, messieurs, it did not take me long to find that out! First of all there was the scarcely enthusiastic reception accorded to certain dishes, which Madame Beauvisage herself brought to the table. Though she ventured to claim, but with no great assurance, that they were pretty nearly the same thing, the guests were of one mind in abstaining from congratulating her. Only certain slices of tunny-fish were received with any sort of favor, because they were, to use the doctor’s terrible expression, ‘well cut,’ and, ‘if the flavor was not entirely satisfactory at all events the eye was deceived.’ But the cripple with the spectacles met with general approval when he declared that ‘it was not equal to the plumber.’

“When I heard those words I felt my blood run cold,” growled Captain Michel huskily, “for I remembered that about this time the year before a plumber had fallen from a roof near the Arsenal and was killed, and his body was picked up minus an arm.

“Then ... O then ... I could not help thinking of the part which my beautiful neighbor must, of necessity, have played in this horrible, culinary drama, I turned my eyes to her and I noticed that she had put on her gloves again, gloves which covered her arms to the shoulder, and also hastily thrown a wrap over her shoulders which wholly concealed them. The guest on my right, who was the doctor, and, as I have said, was the only man among the cripples with both arms intact, had also put on his gloves.

“Instead of bothering my head in vain to discover the reason of this fresh eccentricity, I should have done better to follow the advice which Madame Beauvisage gave me at the beginning of this infernal party, namely, to leave the place early—advice which she did not repeat.

“After showing an interest in me during the first part of this amazing feast in which I seemed to discern—I don’t know why—a sort of pity, Madame Beauvisage now avoided looking at me and took a part which greatly grieved me in the most frightful conversation which I have ever heard. These little people with a vigorous clatter of nippers and clinking of glasses indulged in bitter recriminations or warm congratulations with regard to their peculiar appetite.

“To my horror Lord Wilmer, who until then had been most correct, nearly ‘came to hooks’ with the cripple with the monocle, because the latter had once on the raft complained of the former being tough, and the mistress of the house had the greatest difficulty in putting things in their true light by retorting to the monocled bust, who was obviously at the time of the shipwreck a good-looking stripling, that neither was it particularly agreeable to have to put up with ‘an animal that was too young.’”

“That’s also funny,” the old salt Dorat could not help interjecting.

It looked as if Captain Michel would fly at his throat, particularly as the three other mariners seemed to be shaking with inward joy and gave vent to queer little clucks. It was as much as the Captain could do to control himself. After puffing like a seal he turned to the foolhardy Dorat:

“Monsieur you have two arms still, and I have no wish for you to lose one of them, as I did on that particular night, to make you see the frightful part of the story. The cripples had drunk a great deal. Some of them jumped on the table round me, and were gazing at my arms in a very embarrassing manner and I ended by hiding them from sight as far as possible by thrusting my hands deep into my pockets.

“I realized then, and it was a startling thought, why Madame Beauvisage and the doctor, the two persons who still had arms and hands, did not show them. I grasped the meaning of the sudden ferocity which blazed in the eyes of some of them. And at that very moment, as luck would have it, I wanted to use my pocket handkerchief, and instinctively I made a movement which revealed the whiteness of my skin under my sleeve, and three terrible hooks swooped down at once on my wrist and entered my flesh. I uttered a fearful shriek.”

“That’ll do, Captain, that’ll do,” I exclaimed, interrupting Captain Michel’s story. “You were quite right. I’m off. I can’t stand any more.”

“Stay, monsieur,” said the Captain in a peremptory tone. “Stay, monsieur, for I shall soon finish this frightful story which has made four imbeciles laugh. When a man has Phocean blood in his veins,” he added with an accent of unspeakable contempt turning to the four ancient mariners who were obviously choking in their efforts to keep back their laughter, “when a man has Phocean blood in his veins, he can’t get over it.

“And when a man lives in Marseilles he is doomed never to believe in anything. So it is for you, for you alone, monsieur, that I am telling this story, and, be assured, I will pass over the most loathsome details, knowing as I do how much the mind of a gentleman can bear. The tragedy of my martyrdom proceeded so quickly that I can call to mind only their inhuman cries, the protests of some and the rush of others while Madame Beauvisage stood up and murmured:

“‘Be careful not to hurt him!’

“I tried to leap to my feet, but by this time a posse of mad cripples was round me who tripped me up and I crashed to the floor. And I felt their awful hooks hold my flesh captive just as the meat in a butcher’s shop is held captive on its hooks.

“Yes, monsieur, I will spare you the details. I pledged you my word; all the more so as I couldn’t give them to you, for I did not see the operation. The doctor clapped a plug of cotton wool steeped in chloroform on my mouth by way of a gag.

“When I came to myself I was in the kitchen, and I had lost an arm. The cripples were all around me. They had ceased their wrangling. They seemed to be united in the most touching harmony; in reality they were in a state of dazed intoxication which caused them to sway their heads like children who feel the need to go and lie down after eating their fill, and I had not a doubt but that they were beginning, alas! to digest me.... I was stretched at full length on the floor, securely bound, and deprived of all power of movement, but I could both see and hear them. My old comrade, Gérard Beauvisage, had tears of joy in his eyes as he exclaimed:

“‘I should never have thought you would be so tender!’

“Madame Beauvisage was not present, but she, too, must have taken part in the feast, for I heard some one ask Gérard how ‘she liked her share.’

“Yes, monsieur, I have finished my story. I have finished my story. Those loathsome cripples having satisfied their weakness, must have at last realized the full extent of their iniquity. They made themselves scarce, and Madame Beauvisage, of course, escaped with them. They left the doors wide open but no one came to set me free until four days afterwards, when I was pretty well dead with hunger....

“Those miserable wretches had not even left the bone behind!”