Pog was too closely occupied with the disabled condition in which he found his galleys, to lend attention to the last words of Hadji. One of the spahis picked up the casket, and placed it in Pog’s chamber, to which the latter had descended, after leaving the galley in the command of the pilot.

This chamber was entirely covered with a coarse red woollen material. On this tapestry could be seen, here and there, a great number of black crosses traced by the hand with charcoal. Among them a small number of white crosses appeared, drawn with chalk.

A copper lamp threw a wan and sepulchral light in this room.

The only furniture of the room consisted in a bed, covered with a tiger-skin, two chairs, and an oak table, hardly square.

When the Moor had dressed the wounds of the captain, he retired.

Pog, left alone, remained seated, resting his head on his hand, and reflecting upon the events of the night His vengeance was only half satisfied.

His precipitate retreat humiliated his self-love, and aroused new resentments in his heart.

Nevertheless, he smiled as he thought of the evil he had wrought, and rose from his seat, saying:

“It is always so! My night will not have been lost, if—”

Then he took a piece of charcoal, and made several black crosses on the tapestry. From time to time he paused, as if to collect his thoughts. He had just traced a black cross when he said to himself:

“That Baron des Anbiez was killed! I think so, and I hope so. From the hollow vibration of the handle of the battle-axe in my hand, I thought I felt his skull broken. But the baron wore a helmet, his death is not certain. We will not make a false estimate of victims.” After this lugubrious pleasantry, he erased the cross, and began to count the white crosses.

“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 ............