demon, and the tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter than
she, and I heard her screech, and I knew that my knife had found her. For
a moment I listened to her tumbling and thumping about in the darkness,
and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over my
head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first I
thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came into his
sunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched his
mouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair gave place to
hope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean around in his
head, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed with rage and despair,
seeing my crown, my empire, every hope and every ambition, my very life,
lying prostrate there with the dead master, _they_ came, seized me
from behind, and bound me until my veins stood out like cords, and my
voice failed with the paroxysms of my frenzied screams. But I still
raged, bleeding and infuriated among them, and more than one policeman
felt my sharp teeth. Then when I could no longer move they came nearer; I
saw old Hawberk, and behind him my cousin Louis' ghastly face, and
farther away, in the corner, a woman, Constance, weeping softly.

"Ah! I see it now!" I shrieked. "You have seized the throne and the
empire. Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King in
Yellow!"


[EDITOR'S NOTE.--Mr. Castaigne died yesterday in the Asylum for Criminal
Insane.]