anks of
St. Martin's Canal, carrying with them a box covered with black cloth;
and yet he is still present during all the variations of agony suffered
by the victim whom he and the Chouette have thrown into the canal. After
the first immersion the victim rises to the surface and moves her arms
in violent agitation like some one who, not knowing how to swim, tries
in vain to save herself. Then she utters a piercing cry,--a cry of one
in the last extremity,--despairing--which ends in the sullen, stifled
sound of involuntary choking; and the woman the second time sinks
beneath the troubled waters.

The screech-owl, which hovers continually motionless, imitates the
convulsive rattle of the drowning wretch, as she mocked the dying groans
of the cattle-dealer. In the midst of bursts of deathlike laughter the
screech-owl utters, "Glou! glou! glou!"

The subterranean echoes repeated the sound.

A second time submerged the woman is fast suffocating, and makes one
more desperate effort for breath; but, instead of air, it is water which
she inspires. Then her head falls back, her convulsed features are
swollen and become livid, her neck becomes blue and tumefied, her arms
stiffen, and, in a last spasmodic effort, the drowning woman in her
agony moves her feet, which are resting on the vase. Then she is
surrounded by a mass of black soil, which ascends with her to the
surface of the water. Scarcely has the choked wretch breathed her last
sigh than she is covered with myriads of the microscopic reptiles,--the
greedy and horrible vermin of the mud. The carcass floats for a moment,
balances for a moment, and then sinks slowly, horizontally, the feet
lower than the head, and between the double waters begins to follow the
current of the land. Sometimes the dead corpse turns, and its pale face
is before the Schoolmaster. Then the spectre fixes on him glaringly its
two blue, glassy, and opaque eyes; the livid mouth opens. The
Schoolmaster is far away from the drowning woman, and yet her lips
murmur in his ears, "Glou! glou! glou!" accompanying these appalling
syllables with that singular noise which a bottle thrust into the water
makes when filling itself.

The screech-owl repeats, "Glou! glou! glou!" flapping her wings, and
shrieking:

"The woman of the Canal St. Martin! Murder! murder! murder!"

The vision of the drowned woman disappears. The lake of blood, through
which the Schoolmaster still constantly beholds Rodolph, becomes