Mauprat
agreed that we were much better prepared than before supper to receive all the bogies of Varenne.
This word "bogey" reminded me of the adventure which had brought me into far from friendly contact with Patience at the age of thirteen. Marcasse knew about it already, but he knew very little of my character at that time, and I amused myself by telling him of my wild rush across the fields after being thrashed by the sorcerer.
"This makes me think," I concluded by saying, "that I have an imagination which easily gets overexcited, and that I am not above fear of the supernatural. Thus the apparition just now . . ."
"No matter, no matter," said Marcasse, looking at the priming of my pistols, and putting them on the table by my bed. "Do not forget that all the Hamstringers are not dead; that, if John is in this world, he will do harm until he is under the ground, and trebly locked in hell."
The wine was loosening the hidalgo's tongue; on those rare occasions when he allowed himself to depart from his usual sobriety, he was not wanting in wit. He was unwilling to leave me, and made a bed for himself by the side of mine. My nerves were excited by the incidents of the day, and I allowed myself, therefore, to speak of Edmée, not in such a way as to deserve the shadow of a reproach from her if she had heard my words, but more freely than I might have spoken with a man who was as yet my inferior and not my friend, as he became later. I could not say exactly how much I confessed to him of my sorrows and hopes and anxieties; but those confidences had a disastrous effect, as you will soon see.
We fell asleep while we were talking, with Blaireau
273
