Firm in his intention of bringing his subject to his death by slow degrees, M. Eliphas de la Nox took Theophrastus slowly through the imprisonment, trial, and condemnation of Cartouche. But I omit that part of the narrative of M. Lecamus, since the historians have described that imprisonment and trial at length. I take it up at the point at which Cartouche was on his way to the Torture-chamber that they might force from him the names of his accomplices. "And now," says M. Lecamus in his narrative, "we were approaching the crucial point of the operation: _to kill Cartouche without killing Theophrastus_. Simple enough words, but the most difficult operation in Psychic Surgery. Truly M. de la Nox had been right when he said that he was about to tempt Providence. Truly, he had assumed the most appalling responsibility, the risk of killing Theophrastus without killing Cartouche, and consequently of letting that fiend in human form again become reincarnate in some unfortunate contemporary. "But then it was M. Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de la Nox who had assumed the responsibility, the greatest living expert in Psychical Surgery, the delicacy of whose Astral Scalpel is known to the initiates throughout the world, even to far Thibet. He knew how to move the spirit, quietly and calmly, _round its own death_, so preparing it for the last moment. _He made his dead man live till the very moment at which he made his dead man die!_ "He had brought Theophrastus-Cartouche to the hour when his jailors took him from his cell to lead him to the Torture-chamber. His next question was: "'And where are you now, Cartouche?' "'I am going down a little staircase at the end of Straw Alley... They are opening a grating... I am in the darkness of the cellars... These cellars frighten me... I know them well... Ah, yes: I was shut up in these cellars in the days of Philippe-le-Bel!' "M. de la Nox raised his voice in a tone of awful command, and said: "'Cartouche! You _are_ Cartouche! You are in those cellars by order of the _Regent_!' "Then he muttered, 'Philippe-le-Bel! Where in Heaven's name are we going now? We must not stray. We must not! Where are you now, Cartouche?' "'I am going deeper into the night of the cellars, I am surrounded by guards--many guards. It is too dark to see how many... Ah! I see at the end there, right at the end, a ray which I know well. _It is a square ray which the sun has forgotten there since the beginning of the history of France!_... My guards are not French Guards, they distrust all the French Guards. My guards are commanded by the military lieutenant of the Châtelet.' "There was a pause as M. de la Nox let Cartouche continue on his painful way; then he said: 'And where are you now, Cartouche?'