"Journalist! Incorrigible newsmonger! All right, take notes for your article describing this appalling adventure. So, then, Fandor, the lamp once out, the hours go by, a trifle more slowly in the darkness than in the light. You are silent and still like a little Moses in your wicker cradle. As for me, armoured as I was, I tried not to stir in my bed--to spare the sheets--Juve is not wealthy. Midnight, one o'clock, two, the quarter past. How long it is!--Then, an alarm! A cat that mews strangely. Then comes that little hissing sound I begin to know. Hiss--hiss! Oh, what a horrid feeling! I guess that the window is opening wider. You heard, as I did, Fandor, the revolting scales grit on the boards. But you didn't know what it was, whereas I did know it was the snake! I swear to you it needed all my pluck not to flinch, for I wanted at any cost to see it through to the end, and know whether, behind this reptile, Fantômas was not going to show his vile snout. "Ah, the brute, how quickly he went to work. As I was listening, my muscles tense, my nerves on edge, I suddenly felt my sheet stir--the foul beast is trained to attack beds, remember the attack on Dixon--and suddenly it was the grip, furious, quick as a whip stroke, twining about me. I was thrown down, tossed, shaken, torn like a feather, tied up like a sausage! "My arms glued to my body, my loins hampered. I intended not to say a word, I had faith in my iron-work; but to be frank, I was scared, awfully scared. And I yelled: 'Fandor! Help!' "Oh, those accursed moments. He began to squeeze horribly when all at once I felt a cold liquid flow over my skin--blood. The brute was wounded. We still wrestled, and you tripped in the darkness and smashed the glass of the lamp, and I was choking gradually. All my life I shall remember it. And then, what relief, what joy when the grip slackened, when he gives up and makes off. The beast glided over the floor, reached the window, hissed frantically and vanished. There, M. Reporter, you have impressions from life, and rough ones, too! Well, the luck is turning, and I think it is veering to our quarter. Things are going from bad to worse for Fantômas. I tell you, Fandor, we shall nab him before long!" XXXIII A SCANDAL IN THE CLOISTER Slight sounds, scarcely audible, disturbed the peace of the cloister. In the absolute silence of the night, vague noises could be distinguished. Furtive steps, whisperings, doors opened or shut cautiously. Then the blinking light of a candle shone at a casement, two or three other windows were illuminated and the hubbub grew general. Voices were heard, frightened interjections, the stir increased in the long corridor on which cells opened. Generally the curtains of these cells were discreetly drawn; now they were being pulled aside. Drowsy faces looked out of the gloom; the excitement increased. "Sister Marguerite! Sister Vincent! Sister Clotilde! What is it? What is happening? Listen!"