Page:Gaston Leroux--The man with the black feather.djvu/220

198 him for the charm—the charm to keep her husband's love—the hand of a murderer—the hand of Cartouche!

"'I read it in his brain as clearly as if I read it written… He is lighting a lantern… He has unlocked the grating and entered the charnel-house… He has found my body, and is stooping over it… He has taken my left hand in his left hand, and his knife gleams in the light of the lantern… He is cutting through my wrist… I do not feel the blade in my wrist; I see it… Ah! I begin to feel the knife!… Oh! My wrist! My wrist!… It is nearly severed… Ah! Ah! Ah!… It is severed!

"'What is this… The man howls… He is dancing about among the dead… I see! I see… My hand has come away in the left hand of the man who howls, but by a last miracle of the last life in my wrist, as it was severed, my hand gripped the hand of the man who howls!… Ha! Ha! he can't get rid of it!… It's gripped him!… How it grips him!… He is dragging at it with his right hand!… He can't stir it!… Ah, it isn't easy to rid oneself of a dead man's last grip!… He is out of the charnel-house, howling!… He bounds up the steps, howling!… As he