"What is a fellow to think?" I muttered, as I walked on.

I was soon within sight of the lights of the Belle Etoile. A carriage,
with four horses, stood in the moonlight at the door, and a furious
altercation was going on in the hall, in which the yell of Colonel
Gaillarde out-topped all other sounds.

Most young men like, at least, to witness a row. But, intuitively, I
felt that this would interest me in a very special manner. I had only
fifty yards to run, when I found myself in the hall of the old inn. The
principal actor in this strange drama was, indeed, the Colonel, who
stood facing the old Count de St. Alyre, who, in his traveling costume,
with his black silk scarf covering the lower part of his face,
confronted him; he had evidently been intercepted in an endeavor to
reach his carriage. A little in the rear of the Count stood the
Countess, also in traveling costume, with her thick black veil down, and
holding in her delicate fingers a white rose. You can't conceive a more
diabolical effigy of hate and fury than the Colonel; the knotted veins
stood out on his forehead, his eyes were leaping from their sockets, he
was grinding his teeth, and froth was on his lips. His sword was drawn
in his hand, and he accompanied his yelling denunciations with stamps
upon the floor and flourishes of his weapon in the air.

The host of the Belle Etoile was talking to the Colonel in soothing
terms utterly thrown away. Two waiters, pale with fear, stared uselessly
from behind. The Colonel screamed and thundered, and whirled his sword.
"I was not sure of your red birds of prey; I could not believe you would
have the audacity to travel on high roads, and to stop at honest inns,
and lie under the same roof with honest men. You! _you! both_--vampires,
wolves, ghouls. Summon the _gendarmes_, I say. By St. Peter and all