k circle about the size of a
shilling, where the blood had soaked through the light material. In
examining it I did what the murderer had not done--disturbed the
equilibrium of the body, which fell over against me.

At that moment I heard a loud voice behind me, coming from I knew not
where. I nearly fainted with terror. The train was still going at full
speed; the compartment was empty, save for myself and the ghastly object
which lay in my arms; and yet I seemed to hear a voice almost at my ear.
There it was again! I summoned up courage to look round. It was the
guard of the train clinging on outside the window and demanding
"Biglietti!" By this time, he, too, saw that something was amiss. He
opened the door and swung himself into the carriage. "Dio mio!" I heard
him exclaim, as I actually flung myself into his arms and pointed to the
body now lying in a huddled heap amid its own blood on the floor. Then,
for the first time in my life, I positively swooned away, and knew no
more.

When I came to myself the train had stopped at a small station, the name
of which I do not know to this day. There was a Babel of speech going on
around, not one word of which I could understand. I was on the platform,
supported between two men in uniform, with cocked hats and cockades. In
vain I tried to tell my story. I knew little or no Italian, and, though
there were one or two Frenchmen in the train, they were useless as
interpreters, for on the one hand my power of speaking French seemed to
have departed in my agitation, and on the other hand none of the
Italians understood it. In vain I tried to make them understand that a
"giovane" had travelled in the compartment with us who had now
disappeared. The Italian guard, who had come on at Ventimiglia,
evidently had no recollection of him. He merely shook his head, said
"Non capisco," and inquired if I was "Prussiano." The train had already
been delayed some time, and, after a consultation between the
station-master, the guard, the syndic of the village, who had been
summoned in haste, it was determined to hand the matter over to the
authorities at Genoa. The two carabinieri sat one on each side of me
facing the engine, and on the opposite seat the body was stretched out
with a luggage tarpaulin over it. In this hideous fashion I passed the
four or five remaining hours of the journey to Genoa.

The next week I spent in an Italian prison, a very uncomfortable yet
quite unromantic place o