“I therefore had to be satisfied with watching him as closely as I could, but I could see nothing suspicious about his actions.

“However, as rumors about him were growing and becoming more widespread, I decided to try to see this stranger myself, and I began to hunt regularly in the neighborhood of his grounds.

“For a long time I watched without finding an opportunity.  At last it came to me in the shape of a partridge which I shot and killed right in front of the Englishman.  My dog fetched it for me, but, taking the bird, I went at once to Sir John Rowell and, begging his pardon, asked him to accept it.

“He was a big man, with red hair and beard, very tall, very broad, a kind of calm and polite Hercules.  He had nothing of the so-called British stiffness, and in a broad English accent he thanked me warmly for my attention.  At the end of a month we had had five or six conversations.

“One night, at last, as I was passing before his door, I saw him in the garden, seated astride a chair, smoking his pipe.  I bowed and he invited me to come in and have a glass of beer.  I needed no urging.

“He received me with the most punctilious English courtesy, sang the praises of France and of Corsica, and declared that he was quite in love with this country.

“Then, with great caution and under the guise of a vivid interest, I asked him a few questions about his life and his plans.  He answered without embarrassment, telling me that he had travelled a great deal in Africa, in the Indies, in America.  He added, laughing: 

“‘I have had many adventures.’

“Then I turned the conversation on hunting, and he gave me the most curious details on hunting the hippopotamus, the tiger, the elephant and even the gorilla.

“I said: 

“‘Are all these animals dangerous?’

“He smiled: 

“‘Oh, no!  Man is the worst.’

“And he laughed a good broad laugh, the wholesome laugh of a contented Englishman.

“‘I have also frequently been man-hunting.’

“Then he began to talk about weapons, and he invited me to come in and see different makes of guns.

“His parlor was draped in black, black silk embroidered in gold.  Big yellow flowers, as brilliant as fire, were worked on the dark material.

“He said: 

“‘It is a Japanese material.’

“But in the middle of the widest panel a strange thing attracted my attention.  A black object stood out against a square of red velvet.  I went up to it; it was a hand, a human hand.  Not the clean white hand of a skeleton, but a dried black hand, with yellow nails, the muscles exposed and traces of old blood on the bones, which were cut off as clean as though it had been chopped off with an axe, near the middle of the forearm.

“Around the wrist, an enormous iron chain, riveted and soldered to this unclean member, fastened it to the wall by a ring, strong enough to hold an elephant in leash.