woman on earth but a Spaniard can run about with a dose of poison in
her inside!'

"Bega remained strangely pensive. To drown the dark presentiments that
haunted him, he sat down to table again, and with his companions drank
immoderately. The whole party went early to bed, half drunk.

"In the middle of the night the hapless Bega was aroused by the sharp
rattle of the curtain rings pulled violently along the rods. He sat up
in bed, in the mechanical trepidation which we all feel on waking with
such a start. He saw standing before him a Spaniard wrapped in a
cloak, who fixed on him the same burning gaze that he had seen through
the bushes.

"Bega shouted out, 'Help, help, come at once, friends!' But the
Spaniard answered his cry of distress with a bitter laugh.--'Opium
grows for all!' said he.

"Having thus pronounced sentence as it were, the stranger pointed to
the three other men sleeping soundly, took from under his cloak the
arm of a woman, freshly amputated, and held it out to Bega, pointing
to a mole like that he had so rashly described. 'Is it the same?' he
asked. By the light of the lantern the man had set on the bed, Bega
recognized the arm, and his speechless amazement was answer enough.

"Without waiting for further information, the lady's husband stabbed
him to the heart."

"You must tell that to the marines!" said Lousteau. "It needs their
robust faith to swallow it! Can you tell me which told the tale, the