My Library

sergeant, as he came in “but I have been trying to drive some bullets through the devil! Do you remember telling me not to let a certain person go out, even if I had to shoot him to prevent it?” “Certainly I do. Go on.” “Well, the first thing I knew, that gentleman stood outside the door, and said, as he made faces and ran out his tongue at me, ‘I’m going out in spite of you, monsieur.’ ‘Are you, indeed?’ ‘Of course I am: just see me do it,’ said he, and he marched straight for the stairs, and four of us undertook to clinch him, and did so. Gentlemen, have you ever picked up a hot potatoe? Well, I have, and did not let it drop quicker than we four let go of that individual; only that instead of burning us, it felt for all the world like one feels at the Polytechnic when he takes hold of those infernal things with wires to them, and which discharge a quart or two of lightning into you before you can say Jack Robinson! We let go of the gentleman very quickly, and he passed two or three steps downward, all the while laughing at us, which made me furious, and I fired pointblank at him, and we all attempted to cut him down, but you might just as well have tried to kill a shadow. Messieurs, that man disappeared in the smoke of our pistols! He never passed out in visible form!” During the sergeant’s relation I had determined to see if Dhoula Bel had really left the room, and