“She is expecting Agricola Baudoin, her lover,” said a voice, which seemed to proceed from the wall of the dark room in which Djalma was.

Notwithstanding his bewilderment, these terrible words, “She is expecting Agricola Baudoin, her lover,” passed like a stream of fire through the brain and heart of the prince.  A cloud of blood came over his eyes, he uttered a hollow moan, which the thickness of the glass prevented from being heard in the next room, and broke his nails in attempting to tear down the iron railing before the window.

Having reached this paroxysm of delirious rage, Djalma saw the uncertain light grow still fainter, as if it had been discreetly obscured, and, through the vapory shadow that hung before him, he perceived the young lady returning, clad in a long white dressing-gown, and with her golden curls floating over her naked arms and shoulders.  She advanced cautiously in the direction of a door which was hid from Djalma’s view.  At this moment, one of the doors of the apartment in which the prince was concealed was gently opened by an invisible hand.  Djalma noticed it by the click of the lock, and by the current of fresh air which streamed upon his face, for he could see nothing.  This door, left open for Djalma, like that in the next room, to which the young lady had drawn near, led to a sort of ante-chamber communicating with the stairs, which some one now rapidly ascended, and, stopping short, knocked twice at the outer door.

“Here comes Agricola Baudoin.  Look and listen!” said the same voice that the prince had already heard.

Mad, intoxicated, but with the fixed idea and reckless determination of a madman or a drunkard, Djalma drew the dagger which Faringhea had left in his possession, and stood in motionless expectation.  Hardly were the two knocks heard before the young lady quitted the apartment, from which streamed a faint ray of light, ran to the door of the staircase, so that some faint glimmer reached the place where Djalma stood watching, his dagger in his hand.  He saw the young lady pass across the ante-chamber, and approach the door of the staircase, where she said in a whisper:  “Who is there?”

“It is I—­Agricola Baudoin,” answered, from, without, a manly voice.

What followed was rapid as lightning, and must be conceived rather than described.  Hardly had the young lady drawn the bolt of the door, hardly had Agricola Baudoin stepped across the threshold, than Djalma, with the bound of a tiger, stabbed as it were at once, so rapid were the strokes, both the young lady, who fell dead on the floor, and Agricola, who sank, dangerously wounded, by the side of the unfortunate victim.  This scene of murder, rapid as thought, took place in the midst of a half obscurity.  Suddenly the faint light from the chamber was completely extinguished, and a second after, Djalma felt his arm seized in the darkness by an iron grasp, and the voice of Faringhea whispered:  “You are avenged.  Come; we can secure our retreat.”  Inert, stupefied at what he had done, Djalma offered no resistance, and let himself be dragged by the half-caste into the inner apartment, from which there was another way out.