Now the first dusky châlets of the hamlet of Bel-Oiseau straggled towards
me, and it was music in my ears to hear the cattle blow and rattle in
their stalls under the sleeping lofts as I passed outside in the
moonlight. Five minutes more, and the great zinc onion on the spire of
the church glistened towards me, and I was in the heart of the silent
village.

From the deep green shadow cast by the graveyard wall, heavily
buttressed against avalanches, a form wriggled out into the moonlight
and fell with a dusty thud at my feet, mowing and chopping at the air
with its aimless claws. I started back with a sudden jerk of my pulses.
The thing was horrible by reason of its inarticulate voice, which issued
from the shapeless folds of its writhings like the wet gutturizing of a
back-broken horse. Instinct with repulsion, I stood a moment dismayed,
when light flashed from an open doorway a dozen yards further down the
street, and a woman ran across to the prostrate form.

"Up, graceless one!" she cried; "and carry thy seven devils within
doors!"

The figure gathered itself together at her voice, and stood in an angle
of the buttresses quaking and shielding its eyes with two gaunt arms.

"Can I not exchange a word with Mère Pettit," scolded the woman, "but
thou must sneak from behind my back on thy crazed moon-hunting?"

"Pity, pity," moaned the figure; and then the woman noticed me, and
dropped a curtsy.