which I lay to the adjoining room. The poorly fastened boards which
alone divided me from it yielded to my efforts, and I found myself
in the house. Hastily snatching up the lighted candle, I hurried to
the staircase; about midway a body was lying quite across the
stairs. It was that of La Carconte. The pistol I had heard had
doubtless been fired at her. The shot had frightfully lacerated her
throat, leaving two gaping wounds from which, as well as the mouth,
the blood was pouring in floods. She was stone dead. I strode past
her, and ascended to the sleeping chamber, which presented an
appearance of the wildest disorder. The furniture had been knocked
over in the deadly struggle that had taken place there, and the
sheets, to which the unfortunate jeweller had doubtless clung, were
dragged across the room. The murdered man lay on the floor, his
head leaning against the wall, and about him was a pool of blood
which poured forth from three large wounds in his breast; there was
a fourth gash, in which a long table knife was plunged up to the
handle.
"I stumbled over some object; I stooped to examine — it was the
second pistol, which had not gone off, probably from the powder
being wet. I approached the jeweller, who was not quite dead, and
at the sound of my footsteps and the creaking of the floor, he
opened his eyes, fixed them on me with an anxious and inquiring
gaze, moved his lips as though trying to speak, then, overcome by
the effort, fell back and expired. This appalling sight almost
bereft me of my senses, and finding that I could no longer be of
service to any one in the house, my only desire was to fly. I
rushed towards the staircase, clutching my hair, and uttering a
groan of horror. Upon reaching the room below, I found five or six
custom-house officers, and two or three gendarmes — all heavily
armed. They threw themselves upon me. I made no resistance; I was
no longer master of my senses. When I strove to speak, a few
inarticulate sounds alone escaped my lips.inarticulate sounds alone escaped my lips.
"As I noticed the significant manner in which the whole party
pointed to my blood-stained garments, I involuntarily surveyed
myself, and then I discovered that the thick warm drops that had so
bedewed me as I lay beneath the staircase must have been the blood
of La Carconte. I pointed to the spot where I had concealed myself.
`What does he mean?' asked a gendarme. One of the officers went to
the place I directed. `He means,' replied the man upon his return,
`that he got in that way;' and he showed the hole I had made when I
broke through.
"Then I saw that they took me for the assassin. I recovered
force and energy enough to free myself from the hands of those who
held me, while I managed to stammer forth — `I did not do it!
Indeed, indeed I did not!' A couple of gendarmes held the muzzles
of their carbines against my breast. — `Stir but a step,' said
they, `and you are a dead man.' — `Why should you threaten me with
death,' cried I, `when I have already declared my innocence?' —
`Tush, tush,' cried the men; `keep your innocent stories to tell to
the judge at Nimes. Meanwhile, come along with us; and the best
advice we can give you is to do so unresistingly.' Alas, resistance
was far from my thoughts. I was utterly overpowered by surprise and
terror; and without a word I suffered myself to be handcuffed and
tied to a horse's tail, and thus they took me to Nimes.
"I had been tracked by a customs-officer, who had lost sight of
me near the tavern; feeling certain that I intended to pass the
night there, he had returned to summon his comrades, who just
arrived in time to hear the report of the pistol, and to take me in
the midst of such circumstantial proofs of my guilt as rendered all
hopes of proving my innocence utterly futile. One only chance was
left me, that of beseeching the magistrate before whom I was taken
to cause every inquiry to be made for the Abbe Busoni, who had
stopped at the inn of the Pont du Gard on that morning. Ifstopped at the inn of the Pont du Gard on that morning. If
Caderousse had invented the story relative to the diamond, and
there existed no such person as the Abbe Busoni, then, indeed, I
was lost past redemption, or, at least, my life hung upon the
feeble chance of Caderousse himself being apprehended and
confessing the whole truth. Two months passed away in hopeless
expectation on my part, while I must do the magistrate the justice
to say that he used every means to obtain information of the person
I declared could exculpate me if he would. Caderousse still evaded
all pursuit, and I had resigned myself to what seemed my inevitable
fate. My trial was to come on at the approaching assizes; when, on
the 8th of September — that is to say, precisely three months and
five days after the events which had perilled my life — the Abbe
Busoni, whom I never ventured to believe I should see, presented
himself at the prison doors, saying he understood one of the
prisoners wished to speak to him; he added, that having learned at
Marseilles the particulars of my imprisonment, he hastened to
comply with my desire. You may easily imagine with what eagerness I
welcomed him, and how minutely I related the whole of what I had
seen and heard. I felt some degree of nervousness as I entered upon
the history of the diamond, but, to my inexpressible astonishment,
he confirmed it in every particular, and to my equal surprise, he
seemed to place entire belief in all I said. And then it was that,
won by his mild charity, seeing that he was acquainted with all the
habits and customs of my own country, and considering also that
pardon for the only crime of which I was really guilty might come
with a double power from lips so benevolent and kind, I besought
him to receive my confession, under the seal of which I recounted
the Auteuil affair in all its details, as well as every other
transaction of my life. That which I had done by the impulse of my
best feelings produced the same effect as though it had been the