"I quite believe you, Cortrez; I can answer for it that you would,"
said the mayor.

"As big as a calf," threw in Picou's friend.

"If the loup-garou were _only_ a natural wolf, why then, you see"--the
mayor cleared his throat--"you see we should think nothing of it; but,
M. le Curé, it is a fiend, a worse than fiend, a man-fiend,--a worse
than man-fiend, a man-wolf-fiend."

"But what is the young monsieur to do?" asked the priest, looking from
one to another.

"Never mind," said I, who had been quietly listening to their patois,
which I understood. "Never mind; I will walk back by myself, and if I
meet the loup-garou I will crop his ears and tail, and send them to M.
le Maire with my compliments."

A sigh of relief from the assembly, as they found themselves clear of
the difficulty.

"Il est Anglais," said the mayor, shaking his head, as though he meant
that an Englishman might face the devil with impunity.

A melancholy flat was the marais, looking desolate enough by day, but
now, in the gloaming, tenfold as desolate. The sky was perfectly
clear, and of a soft, blue-grey tinge; illumined by the new moon, a
curve of light approaching its western bed. To the horizon reached a
fen, blacked with pools of stagnant water, from which the frogs kept
up an incessant trill through the summer night. Heath and fern covered