The street was utterly deserted. At the moment when he was coolly retying his shoulder knots, with his nose in the air, he saw the shadow approaching him with slow steps, so slow that he had ample time to observe that this shadow wore a cloak and a hat. On arriving near him, it halted and remained more motionless than the statue of Cardinal Bertrand. Meanwhile, it riveted upon Phœbus two intent eyes, full of that vague light which issues in the night time from the pupils of a cat.
The captain was brave, and would have cared very little for a highwayman, with a rapier in his hand. But this walking statue, this petrified man, froze his blood. There were then in circulation, strange stories of a surly monk, a nocturnal prowler about the streets of Paris, and they recurred confusedly to his memory. He remained for several minutes in stupefaction, and finally broke the silence with a forced laugh.
"Monsieur, if you are a robber, as I hope you are, you produce upon me the effect of a heron attacking a nutshell. I am the son of a ruined family, my dear fellow. Try your hand near by here. In the chapel of this college there is some wood of the true cross set in silver."
The hand of the shadow emerged from beneath its mantle and descended upon the arm of Phœbus with the gripe of an eagle's talon; at the same time the shadow spoke,—
"Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers!"
"What, the devil!" said Phœbus, "you know my name!"
"I know not your name alone," continued the man in the mantle, with his sepulchral voice. "You have a rendezvous this evening."
"Yes," replied Phœbus in amazement.
"At seven o'clock."
"In a quarter of an hour."
"At la Falourdel's."
"Precisely."
"The lewd hag of the Pont Saint-Michel."
"Of Saint Michel the archangel, as the Pater Noster smth."
"Impious wretch!" muttered the spectre. With a woman?"
