e had witnessed many such scenes
in Africa.

"Mother Lecacheur and Celeste began to utter piercing screams and ran
away.

"But it was necessary to recover the corpse of the dead woman. I attached
the young man securely by the waist to the end of the pulley rope and
lowered him very slowly, watching him disappear in the darkness. In one
hand he held the lantern and a rope in the other. Soon I recognized his
voice, which seemed to come from the centre of the earth, saying:

"'Stop!'

"I then saw him fish something out of the water. It was the other leg. He
then bound the two feet together and shouted anew:

"'Haul up!'

"I began to wind up, but I felt my arms crack, my muscles twitch, and I
was in terror lest I should let the man fall to the bottom. When his head
appeared at the brink I asked:

"'Well?' as if I expected he had a message from the drowned woman.

"We both got on the stone slab at the edge of the well and from opposite
sides we began to haul up the body.

"Mother Lecacheur and Celeste watched us from a distance, concealed from
view behind the wall of the house. When they saw issuing from the hole
the black slippers and white stockings of the drowned person they
disappeared.

"Sapeur seized the ankles, and we drew up the body of the poor woman. The
head was shocking to look at, being bruised and lacerated, and the long
gray hair, out of curl forevermore, hanging down tangled and disordered.

"'In the name of all that is holy! how lean she is,' exclaimed Sapeur in
a contemptuous tone.

"We carried her into the room, and as the women did not put in an
appearance I, with the assistance of the stable lad, dressed the corpse
for burial.

"I washed her disfigured face. Under the touch of my finger an eye was
slightly opened and regarded me with that pale, cold look, that terrible
look of a corpse which seems to come from the beyond. I braided as well
as I could her dishevelled hair and with my clumsy hands arranged on her
head a novel and singular coiffure. Then I took off her dripping wet
garments, baring, not without a feeling of shame, as though I had been
guilty of some profanation, her shoulders and her chest and her long
arms, as slim as the twigs of a tree.

"I next went to fetch some flowers, poppies, bluets, marguerites and
fresh, sweet-smelling grass with which to strew her funeral couch.

"I then had to go through the usual formalities, as I was alone to attend
to everything. A letter