A second time submerged the woman is fast suffocating, and makes one more desperate effort for breath; but, instead of air, it is water which she inspires. Then her head falls back, her convulsed features are swollen and become livid, her neck becomes blue and tumefied, her arms stiffen, and, in a last spasmodic effort, the drowning woman in her agony moves her feet, which are resting on the vase. Then she is surrounded by a mass of black soil, which ascends with her to the surface of the water. Scarcely has the choked wretch breathed her last sigh than she is covered with myriads of the microscopic reptiles,--the greedy and horrible vermin of the mud. The carcass floats for a moment, balances for a moment, and then sinks slowly, horizontally, the feet lower than the head, and between the double waters begins to follow the current of the land. Sometimes the dead corpse turns, and its pale face is before the Schoolmaster. Then the spectre fixes on him glaringly its two blue, glassy, and opaque eyes; the livid mouth opens. The Schoolmaster is far away from the drowning woman, and yet her lips murmur in his ears, "Glou! glou! glou!" accompanying these appalling syllables with that singular noise which a bottle thrust into the water makes when filling itself. The screech-owl repeats, "Glou! glou! glou!" flapping her wings, and shrieking: "The woman of the Canal St. Martin! Murder! murder! murder!" The vision of the drowned woman disappears. The lake of blood, through which the Schoolmaster still constantly beholds Rodolph, becomes of a bronzed, black colour, then red again, and then changes instantaneously into a liquid, furnace-like, molten metal. Then that lake of fire rises--rises--rises towards the sky like an immense whirlpool. There is now a fiery horizon like iron at a white heat. This immense, boundless horizon dazzles and scorches the very eyes of the Schoolmaster, who, fascinated, fastened to the spot, cannot turn away his gaze. Then, at the bottom of this burning lava, whose reflection seems to consume him, he sees pass and repass, one by one, the black and giant spectres of his victims. "The magic-lanthorn of remorse! remorse! remorse!" shrieks the night-bird, flapping her hideous wings, and laughing mockingly.