"And what do you think of the Dragon Volant?"

"The Dragon Volant! Monsieur; the old fiery dragon! The devil himself,
if all is true! On the faith of a Christian, Monsieur, they say that
diabolical miracles have taken place in this house."

"What do you mean? _Revenants_?"

"Not at all, sir; I wish it was no worse. _Revenants_? No! People
who have never returned--who vanished, before the eyes of half-a-dozen
men all looking at them."

"What do you mean, St. Clair? Let us hear the story, or miracle, or
whatever it is."

"It is only this, Monsieur, that an ex-master-of-the-horse of the late
king, who lost his head--Monsieur will have the goodness to recollect,
in the revolution--being permitted by the Emperor to return to France,
lived here in this hotel, for a month, and at the end of that time
vanished, visibly, as I told you, before the faces of half-a-dozen
credible witnesses! The other was a Russian nobleman, six feet high and
upwards, who, standing in the center of the room, downstairs, describing
to seven gentlemen of unquestionable veracity the last moments of Peter
the Great, and having a glass of _eau de vie_ in his left hand, and
his _tasse de cafe,_ nearly finished, in his right, in like manner
vanished. His boots were found on the floor where he had been standing;
and the gentleman at his right found, to his astonishment, his cup of
coffee in his fingers, and the gentleman at his left, his glass of
_eau de vie_--"