It was with a great difficulty that I collected my thoughts; but, as soon as I could stand upright, I seized Marcasse and hurriedly dragged him out of the accursed room. I had several narrow escapes of falling as I hastened down the winding stairs, and it was only on breathing the evening air in the courtyard, and smelling the healthy odour of the stables, that I recovered the use of my reason.
I did not hesitate to look upon what had just happened as an hallucination. I had given proof of my courage in war in the presence of my worthy sergeant; I did not blush, therefore, to confess the truth to him. I answered his questions frankly, and I described my horrible vision with such minute details that he, too, was impressed with the reality of it, and, as he walked about with me in the courtyard, kept repeating with a thoughtful air:
"Singular, singular! Astonishing!"
"No, it is not astonishing," I said, when I felt that I had quite recovered. "I experienced a most painful sensation on my way here; for several days I had struggled to overcome my aversion to seeing Roche-Mauprat again. Last night I had a nightmare, and I felt so exhausted and depressed this morning that, if I had not been afraid of offending my uncle, I should have postponed this disagreeable visit. As we entered the place, I felt a chill come over me; there seemed to be a weight on my chest, and I could not breathe. Probably, too, the pungent smoke that filled the room disturbed my brain. Again, after all the hardships and dangers of our terrible voyage, from which we have hardly recovered, either of us, is it astonishing that my nerves gave way at the first painful emotion?""Tell me," replied Marcasse, who was still pondering the matter, "did you notice Blaireau at the moment? What did Blaireau do?""I thought I saw Blaireau rush at the phantom at the moment when it disappeared; but I suppose I dreamt that like the rest.""Hum!" said the sergeant. "When I entered, Blaireau was wildly excited. He kept coming to you, sniffing, whining in his way, running to the bed, scratching the wall, coming to me, running to you.
Strange, that! Astonishing, captain, astonishing, that!"After a silence of a few moments:
"Devil don't return!" he exclaimed, shaking his head. "Dead never return; besides, why dead, John? Not dead! Still two Mauprats! Who knows? Where the devil? Dead don't return; and my master--mad? Never.
Ill? No."
After this colloquy the sergeant went and fetched a light, drew his faithful sword from the scabbard, whistled Blaireau, and bravely seized the rope which served as a balustrade for the staircase, requesting me to remain below. Great as was my repugnance to entering the room again, I did not hesitate to follow Marcasse, in spite of his recommendation. Our first care was to examine the bed; but while we had been talking in the courtyard the servant had brought clean sheets, had made the bed, and was now smoothing the blankets.
"Who has been sleeping there?" asked Marcasse, with his usual caution.
"Nobody," she replied, "except M. le Chevalier or M. l'Abbe Aubert, in the days when they used to come.""But yesterday, or to-day, I mean?" said Marcasse.
"Oh! yesterday and to-day, nobody, sir; for it is quite two years since M. le Chevalier came here; and as for M. l'Abbe, he never sleeps here, now that he comes alone. He arrives in the morning, has lunch with us, and goes back in the evening.""But the bed was disarranged," said Marcasse, looking at her attentively.
"Oh, well! that may be, sir," she replied. "I do not know how they left it the last time some one slept here; I did not pay any attention to that as I put on the sheets; all I know is that M. Bernard's cloak was lying on the top.""My cloak?" I exclaimed. "It was left in the stable.""And mine, too," said Marcasse. "I have just folded both together and put them on the corn-bin.""You must have had two, then," replied the servant; "for I am sure Itook one off the bed. It was a black cloak, not new."Mine, as a fact, was lined with red and trimmed with gold lace.
Marcasse's was light gray. It could not, therefore, have been one of our cloaks brought up for a moment by the man and then taken back to the stable.
"But, what did you do with it?" said the sergeant.
"My word, sir," replied the fat girl, "I put it there, over the arm-chair. You must have taken it while I went to get a candle. I can't see it now."We searched the room thoroughly; the cloak was not to be found. We pretended that we needed it, not denying that it was ours. The servant unmade the bed in our presence, and then went and asked the man what he had done with it. Nothing could be found either in the bed or in the room; the man had not been upstairs. All the farm-folk were in a state of excitement, fearing that some one might be accused of theft.
We inquired if a stranger had not come to Roche-Mauprat, and if he was not still there. When we ascertained that these good people had neither housed or seen any one, we reassured them about the lost cloak by saying that Marcasse had accidentally folded it with the two others. Then we shut ourselves in the room, in order to explore it at our ease; for it was now almost evident that what I had seen was by no means a ghost, but John Mauprat himself, or a man very like him, whom I had mistaken for John.
Marcasse having aroused Blaireau by voice and gesture, watched all his movements.
