nging.

She uttered terrible cries:

"Victor! Victor! Victor!"

He ran out in his shirt. She could not utter another word, and turning
aside her head so as not to see, she pointed toward the tree with her
outstretched arm.

Not understanding what she meant, he took the candle in order to find
out, and in the midst of the foliage lit up from below he saw old Amable
hanging high up with a stable-halter round his neck.

A ladder was leaning against the trunk of the apple tree.

Victor ran to fetch a bill-hook, climbed up the tree and cut the halter.
But the old man was already cold and his tongue protruded horribly with a
frightful grimace.

ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES, Vol. 10.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES
Translated by
ALBERT M. C. McMASTER, B.A.
A. E. HENDERSON, B.A.
MME. QUESADA and Others

VOLUME X.

THE CHRISTENING

"Well doctor, a little brandy?"

"With pleasure."

The old ship's surgeon, holding out his glass, watched it as it slowly
filled with the golden liquid. Then, holding it in front of his eyes, he
let the light from the lamp stream through it, smelled it, tasted a few
drops and smacked his lips with relish. Then he said:

"Ah! the charming poison! Or rather the seductive murderer, the
delightful destroyer of peoples!

"You people do not know it the way I do. You may have read that admirable
book entitled L'Assommoir, but you have not, as I have, seen alcohol
exterminate a whole tribe of savages, a little kingdom of
negroes--alcohol calmly unloaded by the barrel by red-bearded
English seamen.

"Right near here, in a little village in Brittany near Pont-l'Abbe, I
once witnessed a strange and terrible tragedy caused by alcohol. I was
spending my vacation in a little country house left me by my father. You
know this flat coast where the wind whistles day and night, where one
sees, standing or prone, these giant rocks which in the olden times were
regarded as guardians, and which still retain something majestic and
imposing about them. I always expect to see them come to life and start
to walk across the country with the slow and ponderous tread of giants,
or to unfold enormous granite wings and fly toward the paradise of the
Druids.

"Everywhere is the sea, always ready on the slightest provocation to rise
in its anger and shake its foamy mane at those bold enough to brave it