The hand of the assassin clings to the handle of the poignard, as the blade of the poignard clings to the frame of the wounded man. The murderer then hears the sound of clinking spurs and clashing swords in the adjoining room. He must escape at all risks, and attempts to carry with him the body of the feeble old man, from which he cannot withdraw either his weapon or his hand. He cannot do even this. The light and feeble carcass weighs him down like a mass of lead. Despite his herculean shoulders, his desperate efforts, the Schoolmaster cannot even stir this overwhelming weight. The sound of echoing steps and jingling sabres comes nearer and nearer. The key turns in the lock,--the door opens. The vision disappears. And then the screech-owl flaps her wing, and shrieks out: "It is the old miser of the Rue de la Roule. Your maiden murder! murder! murder!" A moment's darkness,--then the miasma which covers the lake of blood resumes its transparency, and another spectre is revealed. The day begins to dawn,--the fog is thick and heavy. A man, clothed like a cattle-dealer, lies stretched, dead on the bank of the highroad. The trampled earth, the torn turf, proved that the victim had made a desperate resistance. The man has five bleeding wounds in his breast. He is lifeless; yet still he seems to whistle on his dogs, calling to them, "Help! help!" But his whistling, his cries, proceed from five large and gaping wounds,-- "Each one a death in nature,"-- which move like so many complaining lips. The five calls, the five whistlings, all made and heard at once, come from the dead man by the mouths of his gushing wounds; and fearful are they to hear! At this instant the Chouette waves her wings, and mocks the deathly groans of the victim with five bursts of laughter,--a laughter as unearthly and as horrible as the madman's mirth; and then again she shrieks: "The cattle-dealer of Poissy. Murder! murder! murder!" Protracted and underground echoes first repeat aloud the malevolent laughter of the screech-owl. Then they seem to die away in the very bowels of the earth. At this sound two large dogs, as black as midnight, with eyes glaring like burning coals, begin to run rapidly around--around--around the Schoolmaster, baying furiously. They almost touch him, and yet their bark appears as distant as if carried on the wind of the morning. Gradually these spectres fade away as the previous one did, and are lost in the pale vapour which is continually ascending.