l's in it,' said Falcon; 'the man went through a wall, I
believe! As I do not suppose that he is a wizard, I fancy he must belong
to the house! He knows every corner and turning, and easily escaped.'

"'I am done for,' said the surgeon, in a gloomy voice.

"'Come, come, keep calm, Bega,' said I (his name was Bega), 'we will sit
on watch with you till you leave. We will not leave you this evening.'

"In point of fact, three young officers who had been losing at play went
home with the surgeon to his lodgings, and one of us offered to stay
with him.

"Within two days Bega had obtained his recall to France; he made
arrangements to travel with a lady to whom Murat had given a strong
escort, and had just finished dinner with a party of friends, when
his servant came to say that a young lady wished to speak to him.
The surgeon and the three officers went down suspecting mischief. The
stranger could only say, 'Be on your guard--' when she dropped down
dead. It was the waiting-woman, who, finding she had been poisoned, had
hoped to arrive in time to warn her lover.

"'Devil take it!' cried Captain Falcon, 'that is what I call love! No
woman on earth but a Spaniard can run about with a dose of poison in her
inside!'

"Bega remained strangely pensive. To drown the dark presentiments that
haunted him, he sat down to table again, and with his companions drank
immoderately. The whole party went early to bed, half drunk.

"In the middle of the night the hapless Bega was aroused by the sharp
rattle of the curtain rings pulled violently along the rods. He sat up
in bed, in the mechanical trepidation which we all feel on waking with
such a start. He saw standing before him a Spaniard wrapped in a cloak,
who fixed on him the same burning gaze that he had seen through the
bushes.

"Bega shouted out, 'Help, help, come at once, friends!' But the Spaniard
answered his cry of distress with a bitter laugh.--'Opium grows for
all!' said he.

"Having thus pronounced sentence as it were, the stranger pointed to the
three other men sleeping soundly, took from under his cloak the arm of
a woman, freshly amputated, and held it out to Bega, pointing to a mole
like that he had so rashly described. 'Is it the same?' he asked. By
the light of the lantern the man had set on the bed, Bega recognized the
arm, and his speechless amazement was answer enough.

"Without waiting for further information, the lady's husband stabbed him
to the heart."