prit. The father of the dead girl was first of all arrested,
but his innocence being quickly established, he was set free. Every
means was then taken to guard against any recurrence, but in spite of
all precautions the same thing happened again shortly afterwards; and
happened repeatedly. The fact that the cemetery was surrounded by very
high walls, and that iron gates, which were always kept shut, formed the
only legitimate entrance, added to the mystery, and made it seem
impossible that any creature of solid flesh and blood could be
responsible for the outrages.

Having observed that at one place, in particular, the wall, though
nearly ten feet high, showed signs of having been frequently scaled, an
old army officer set a trap there, consisting of a wire connected with
an explosive, which was so arranged that no one could climb over the
wall without treading on the wire and causing an explosion.

A strong posse of detectives kept watch, and at midnight a loud report
was heard. The detectives were not, however, as quick as their quarry.
They saw a man, or what they took to be a man, and fired at him, but he
was gone like a flash of lightning, scaling the wall with the agility of
a monkey. Finding a trail of blood, however, and pieces of torn uniform
accompanying the bloodstains, they concluded that the enemy was wounded,
and that the marauder was, moreover, a soldier.

Still, it is doubtful whether his identity would have been proved, had
not one of the grave-diggers of the cemetery chanced to overhear some
sappers of the 74th Regiment remark that on the preceding night one of
their comrades--a sergeant--had been conveyed to the military hospital
of Val de Grace badly wounded. The matter was at once inquired into, and
the wounded soldier, Sergeant Bertrand, was found to be the author of
the long series of hideous violations. Bertrand freely confessed his
guilt, declaring that he was driven to it against his own will by some
external force he could not define, and which allowed him no peace. He
had, he said, in one night exhumed and bitten as many as fifteen bodies.
He employed no implements, but tore up the soil after the manner of a
wild beast, paying no heed to the bruising and laceration of his hands
so long as he could get at the dead. He could not describe what his
sensations were like when he was thus occupied; he only knew that he
was not himself but some ravenous, ferocious animal. He added, that
after these