“Eleven,” said he, “eleven chevaliers of Malta, slain by my hand. Oh! they are surely dead, for I would have killed myself a thousand times on their bodies, rather than have left in them one breath of life.” He then sank into a gloomy silence. Suddenly, standing up, his arms crossed on his breast, his head bowed, he said, with a deep sigh: “For more than twenty years I have pursued my vengeance,--my work of destruction. For twenty years has my sorrow diminished? Are my regrets less desperate? I do not know. Without doubt I feel a horrible joy in saying to man: ‘Suffer--die.’ But after--after! Always regret--always! And yet I have no remorse, no! It seems to me that I am the blind instrument of an all-powerful will. Yes, that must be. It is not the love of gain which guides me. It is an imperious necessity, an insatiable need of vengeance. Where am I going? What will be the awakening from this bloody life which sometimes seems to me a horrible dream? When I think upon what was formerly my life, on what I was myself, it is something to drive me mad,--as I am. Yes, I must be mad, for sometimes there are moments when I ask myself: ‘Why so many cruel deeds?’ To-night, for instance, how much blood--how much blood! That old man! Those women! Oh, I am mad, furiously mad! Oh, it is terrible! What had they done to me?” He hid his face in his hands. After a few moments of sullen reflection, he cried, in an agonising voice: “Oh, what had I done to him,--to the one who hurled me from heaven to hell? I never did him a wrong! What had I done to her,--to his accomplice? I surrounded her with all the adoration, all the idolatry that man could feel here below for a creature. And, yet! Oh!--this sorrow,--will it always be bleeding? Will this memory always be so dreadful,--always burning like a hot iron? Oh, rage! Oh, misery! Oh, to forget! to forget! I only ask to forget!” As he uttered these words, Pog fell with his face on the bed, tore the tiger-skin in his convulsed hands, and groaned with a sort of hollow, stifled roar. The paroxysm lasted some time, and was succeeded by a heavy stupor. Suddenly he straightened himself up, his complexion paler than usual, his eyes brilliant, and his lips contracted. He passed his hand over his forehead to fasten the bandage around his wound, which had become disarranged. As he let his arm fall from weakness, he felt near the partition an object which he had not remarked. It was the casket which Hadji had thrown on board the _Red Galleon_, and that one of the men had left in the captain’s chamber. Pog mechanically took up the casket and placed it on his knees. The Maltese cross embossed on the lid met his sight, and made him start. He threw it abruptly away from him; the scarf became untied, and fell open. Quite a large number of letters rolled on the floor, with two medallions, and a long tress of blond hair. Pog was seated on his bed; the medallions had fallen a considerable distance from him.