ncomprehensible. Sapeur exclaimed:

"'It is a horse. I see the hoofs. It must have got out of the meadow
during the night and fallen in headlong.'

"But suddenly a cold shiver froze me to the marrow. I first recognized
a foot, then a leg sticking up; the whole body and the other leg were
completely under water.

"I stammered out in a loud voice, trembling so violently that the
lantern danced hither and thither over the slipper:

"'It is a woman! Who-who-can it be? It is Miss Harriet!'

"Sapeur alone did not manifest horror. He 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 dis