“The maniac stared at me for a moment, but I took especial care not to avert my gaze from his countenance, and he quailed beneath it. He stammered a few incoherent words, and strove to pass me, but I barred his passage with extended arms. He looked vacantly right and left, and then flung himself upon my neck and burst into tears. ‘’Tis true—’tis true, my friend. The thought has haunted me day and night, like a flash from the lurid fire of hell. It was for this I brought you here. Look, you stand within a foot of the edge of the parapet—in another instant, the work would have been done!’ “The demon had left him; his eye was still unsettled, and the white foam stood in bubbles on his parched lips; but he was no longer tossed by the same mad excitement under which he had been labouring so long, for he suffered me to lead him home without a single word. A few days’ repose and silence, bleeding and abstinence, completely restored him to his former self, and, what is most extraordinary, the circumstance was never mentioned between us. My FATE was at work. It was during those few days of watching by the bedside of poor Beaumetz, that I received the letters from France which announced to me the revocation of the decree which had sent me a wanderer to America. The _Directoire_ had relented, and I was invited to return with all speed. I sought not to resist the appeal, and at once decided on leaving Beaumetz to prosecute our speculation alone, and on returning to Paris immediately. “The blow was cruel to poor Beaumetz, who was fully persuaded, I have no doubt, that it was in dread of another attack on his part that I had now the wish to leave him. No argument I could make use of, no assurances of unchanged friendship, could shake his opinion, and our parting was a most stormy and painful one. I made over to him my interest in the ship which we had freighted together, and he departed for India, while I bent my course once more towards my _belle France_. “Once more in a position to assist my friends, my first thought was of Beaumetz, and one of my first acts was the cancelling of his death-warrant. I wrote to him to announce the joyful news, addressing my letter to the merchant at Calcutta to whom he had been recommended. In due time, receiving no answer, I wrote again; but my letters were returned, with the information that the ship, which had sailed from New York some months before, and of which M. Beaumetz was supercargo, had not arrived, that no tidings had been received of its fate, and that great fears were entertained of its total loss. The apprehension was justified, _for from that day to this no tidings have ever been received of the ship, nor, alas! of my poor friend Beaumetz!_”