prepared than before supper to receive all the bogies of Varenne.

This word "bogey" reminded me of the adventure which had brought me into
far from friendly contact with Patience at the age of thirteen. Marcasse
knew about it already, but he knew very little of my character at that
time, and I amused myself by telling him of my wild rush across the
fields after being thrashed by the sorcerer.

"This makes me think," I concluded by saying, "that I have an
imagination which easily gets overexcited, and that I am not above fear
of the supernatural. Thus the apparition just now . . ."

"No matter, no matter," said Marcasse, looking at the priming of my
pistols, and putting them on the table by my bed. "Do not forget that
all the Hamstringers are not dead; that, if John is in this world, he
will do harm until he is under the ground, and trebly locked in hell."

The wine was loosening the hidalgo's tongue; on those rare occasions
when he allowed himself to depart from his usual sobriety, he was not
wanting in wit. He was unwilling to leave me, and made a bed for himself
by the side of mine. My nerves were excited by the incidents of the day,
and I allowed myself, therefore, to speak of Edmee, not in such a way as
to deserve the shadow of a reproach from her if she had heard my words,
but more freely than I might have spoken with a man who was as yet my
inferior and not my friend, as he became later. I could not say exactly
how much I confessed to him of my sorrows and hopes and anxieties; but
those confidences had a disastrous effect, as you will soon see.

We fell asleep while we were talking, with Blaireau at his master's
feet, the hidalgo's sword across his knees near the dog, the light