a trade I had often heard of as being resorted to by the most
reckless and abandoned of the population of Paris, when their crimes and
their haunts became too well known in the capital.

I peered eagerly through the chamber to see if he were armed; but not a
weapon of any kind was to be seen. I next sought to discover if he were
quite alone; and although one side of the hovel was hidden from my view,
I was well assured that he had no comrade. Come, said I to myself, man
to man, if it should come to a struggle, is fair enough; and the chances
are I shall be able to defend myself.

His sleep was sound and heavy, like that after fatigue; so that I
thought it would be easy for me to enter the hovel, and secure his arms,
if he had such, before he should awake. I may seem to my reader, all
this time, to have been inspired with an undue amount of caution and
prudence, considering how evenly we were matched; but I would remind
him that it was a period when the most dreadful crimes were of daily
occurrence. Not a night went over without some terrible assassination;
and a number of escaped galley-slaves were known to be at large in the
suburbs and outskirts of the capital. These men, under the slightest
provocation, never hesitated at murder; for their lives were already
forfeited, and they scrupled at nothing which offered a chance of
escape. To add to the terror their atrocities excited, there was a
rumour current at the time that the Government itself made use of these
wretches for its own secret acts of vengeance; and many implicitly
believed that the dark assassinations of the Temple had no other agency.
I do not mean to say that these fears were well founded, or that I
myself partook of them; but such were the reports commonly circulated,
and the impunity of crime certainly favoured the impression. I know
not if this will serve as an apology for the circumspection of my
proceeding, as, cautiously pushing the door, inch by inch, I at length
threw it wide open. Not the slightest sound escaped as I did so; and yet
certainly before my hand quitted the latch, the sleeper had sprung to
his knees, and with his dark eyes glaring wildly at me, crouched like a
beast about to rush upon an enemy.

His attitude and his whole appearance at that moment are yet before me.
Long black hair fell in heavy masses at either side of his head; his
face was pale, haggard, and hunger-stricken; a deep, drooping moustache
descended from below his ch