ght, and fallen in headlong."

But, suddenly, a cold shiver attacked my spine, I first recognized a
foot, then a clothed limb; the body was entire, but the other limb had
disappeared under the water.

I groaned and trembled so violently that the light of the lamp danced
hither and thither over the object, discovering a 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 scream and to shriek, and ran
away.

But it was necessary to recover the corpse of the dead. I attached the
valet securely by the loins to the end of the pulley-rope, and I lowered
him slowly, and watched him disappear in the darkness. In the one hand
he had a lantern, and held on by the rope with the other. Soon I
recognized his voice, which seemed to come from the center of the earth,
crying:

"Stop."

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

"Haul up."

I commenced to wind him 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, what is it?" as though I only expected that he would inform me of
what he had discovered at the bottom.

We both got on to the stone slab at the edge of the well, and, face to
face, we hoisted 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 the white stockings of the drowned person, they
disappeared.

Sapeur seized the ankles of the poor chaste woman, and we drew it up,
sloping, as it was, in the most immodest posture. The head was shocking
to look at, being bruised and black; and the long, gray hair, 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. To the touch of my hand, an eye was
slightly opened, which regarded me with that pale regard, with that cold
look, with that terrible look that corpses have, which seemed to come
from beyond life. I plaited up, as well as I could