The captain was no coward, and would have cared very little for a robber rapier in hand; but this walking statue, this petrified man, froze his blood. Queer stories were going about at that time of a spectre- monk who nightly roamed the streets of Paris, and these stories now returned confusedly to his mind. He stood for a moment bewildered and stupefied, and then broke the silence.

“Sir,” said he, forcing a laugh, “if you are a thief, which I trust is the case, you look to me for all the world like a heron attacking a nutshell. My good fellow, I am a ruined youth of family. But try your luck here— in the chapel of this College you will find a piece of the true cross set in silver.”

The hand of the shade came forth from under its cloak and fell upon Phœbus’s arm with the grip of an eagle’s talons, while at the same time it spoke. “Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers!” it said.

“The devil!” exclaimed Phœbus; “you know my name?”

“I know more than your name,” returned the cloaked man in sepulchral tones. “I know that you have a rendezvous to-night.”

“Yes, I have,” answered Phœbus in amazement.

“At seven o’clock.”

“In a quarter of an hour.”

“At La Falourdel’s.”

“Precisely.”

“The old procuress of the Pont Saint-Michel.”

“Of Saint-Michael the Archangel, as says the paternoster.”

“Impious one!” growled the spectre. “With a woman?”

“Confiteor— I confess it.”

“Whose name is— ”

“La Smeralda,” said Phœbus lightly; all his carelessness returned to him.

At this name the spectre’s grip tightened, and he shook the captain’s arm furiously.

“Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers, thou liest!”

Any one beholding at that moment the flame of anger that rushed to the soldier’s face, his recoil— so violent that it relieved him from the other’s clutch, the haughty air with which he laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword, and, in face of that passionate resentment, the sullen immobility of the man in the cloak— any one beholding this would have been startled. It was like the combat between Don Juan and the statue.

“Christ and Satan!” cried the captain, “that’s a word that seldom attacks the ear of a Châteaupers! Thou darest not repeat it!”

“Thou liest!” said the shade coldly.

The captain ground his teeth. Spectre-monk, phantom, superstitions— all were forgotten at this moment. He saw only a man and an insult.