whom the colonel had dispatched to the sexton’s wife. Every thing had happened precisely as he described;—the clock struck one at the very moment the head was laid in the grave.
These events had produced to the spectators a night of much greater terrors than the colonel had prepared for them. Nay, even his imagination was raised to such a pitch, that the least breath of wind, or the slightest noise, appeared to him as a forerunner to some disagreeable visitor from the world of spirits.
He was out of his bed at dawn of day, to look out of his window and see the occasion of the noise which at that hour was heard at the inn-door. He saw the rope-dancers seated in the carriage, about to take their departure. Calzolaro was not with them; but presently afterwards came to the side of the vehicle, where he took leave of them: the children seemed to leave him behind with regret.
The carriage drove off; and the colonel made a signal to Calzolaro to come and speak to him.
“I apprehend,” said he to him, when he came in, “that you have taken entire leave of your troop.”
“Well, monsieur, ought I not so to do?”
“It appears to me a procedure in which you have acted with as little reflection as the one
