s_, had become almost effaced. Therefore, he halted
before the statue according to his wont. The street was utterly
deserted. At the moment when he was coolly retying his shoulder knots,
with his nose in the air, he saw the shadow approaching him with slow
steps, so slow that he had ample time to observe that this shadow wore
a cloak and a hat. On arriving near him, it halted and remained more
motionless than the statue of Cardinal Bertrand. Meanwhile, it riveted
upon Phoebus two intent eyes, full of that vague light which issues in
the night time from the pupils of a cat.

The captain was brave, and would have cared very little for a
highwayman, with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue, this
petrified man, froze his blood. There were then in circulation, strange
stories of a surly monk, a nocturnal prowler about the streets of Paris,
and they recurred confusedly to his memory. He remained for several
minutes in stupefaction, and finally broke the silence with a forced
laugh.

"Monsieur, if you are a robber, as I hope you are, you produce upon me
the effect of a heron attacking a nutshell. I am the son of a ruined
family, my dear fellow. Try your hand near by here. In the chapel of
this college there is some wood of the true cross set in silver."

The hand of the shadow emerged from beneath its mantle and descended
upon the arm of Phoebus with the grip of an eagle's talon; at the same
time the shadow spoke,--

"Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers!"

"What, the devil!" said Phoebus, "you know my name!"

"I know not your name alone," continued the man in the mantle, with his
sepulchral voice. "You have a rendezvous this evening."

"Yes," replied Phoebus in amazement.

"At seven o'clock."

"In a quarter of an hour."

"At la Falourdel's."

"Precisely."

"The lewd hag of the Pont Saint-Michel."

"Of Saint Michel the archangel, as the Pater Noster saith."

"Impious wretch!" muttered the spectre. "With a woman?"

"_Confiteor_,--I confess--."

"Who is called--?"

"La Smeralda," said Phoebus, gayly. All his heedlessness had gradually
returned.

At this name, the shadow's grasp shook the arm of Phoebus in a fury.

"Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers, thou liest!"

Any one who could have beheld at that moment the captain's inflamed
countenance, his leap backwards, so violent that he disengaged himself
from the grip which held him, the proud air with which he clapped his
hand on his swordhilt, and, in th