anged color; it had only become a little more transparent,
showing, after a fashion, the color of the tendons, the fat and the
muscles, wherever it rested directly upon them. It also had a rosy tint
which is not ordinarily seen in embalmed corpses. Doctor Martout
explained this anomaly by saying that if the colonel had actually been
dried alive, the globules of the blood were not decomposed, but simply
collected in the capillary vessels of the skin and subjacent tissues
where they still preserved their proper color, and could be seen more
easily than otherwise, on account of the semi-transparency of the skin.

The uniform had become much too large, as may be readily understood;
though it did not seem, at a casual glance, that the members had become
deformed. The hands were dry and angular, but the nails, although a
little bent inward toward the root, had preserved all their freshness.
The only very noticeable change was the excessive depression of the
abdominal walls, which seemed crowded downward toward the posterior
side; at the right, a slight elevation indicated the place of the liver.
A tap of the finger on the various parts of the body, produced a sound
like that from dry leather. While Leon was pointing out these details to
his audience and doing the honors of his mummy he awkwardly broke off
the lower part of the right ear, and a little piece of the Colonel
remained in his hand.

This trifling accident might have passed unnoticed, had not Clementine,
who followed with visible emotion all the movements of her lover,
dropped her candle and uttered a cry of affright. All gathered around
her. Leon took her in his arms and carried her to a chair. M. Renault
ran after salts. She was as pale as death, and seemed on the point of
fainting.

She soon recovered, however, and reassured them all by a charming smile.

"Pardon me," she said, "for such a ridiculous exhibition of terror; but
what Monsieur Leon was saying to us ... and then ... that figure which
seemed sleeping ... it appeared to me that the poor man was going to
open his mouth and cry out when he was injured."

Leon hastened to close the walnut box, while M. Martout picked up the
piece of ear and put it in his pocket. But Clementine, while continuing
to smile and make apologies, was overcome by a fresh accession of
emotion and melted into tears. The engineer threw himself at her feet,
poured forth excuses and tender phrases, and did all he could to console