“I understand.  There never was a more just comparison.  You are a man of sound judgment.  Always recollect what you have just told me, and make yourself more and more worthy of the confidence of—­your idol.”

“Will he soon be in a state to hear me, my lord?”

“In two or three days, at most.  Yesterday a providential crisis saved his life; and he is endowed with so energetic a will, that his cure will be very rapid.”

“Shall you see him again to-morrow, my lord?”

“Yes, before my departure, to bid him farewell.”

“Then tell him a strange circumstance, of which I have not been able to inform him, but which happened yesterday.”

“What was it?”

“I had gone to the garden of the dead.  I saw funerals everywhere, and lighted torches, in the midst of the black night, shining upon tombs.  Bowanee smiled in her ebon sky.  As I thought of that divinity of destruction, I beheld with joy the dead-cart emptied of its coffins.  The immense pit yawned like the mouth of hell; corpses were heaped upon corpses, and still it yawned the same.  Suddenly, by the light of a torch, I saw an old man beside me.  He wept.  I had seen him before.  He is a Jew—­the keeper of the house in the Rue Saint-Francois—­you know what I mean.”  Here the man in the cloak started.

“Yes, I know; but what is the matter? why do you stop short?”

“Because in that house there has been for a hundred and fifty years the portrait of a man whom I once met in the centre of India, on the banks of the Ganges.”  And the man in the cloak again paused and shuddered.

“A singular resemblance, no doubt.”

“Yes, my lord, a singular resemblance—­nothing more.”

“But the Jew—­the old Jew?”

“I am coming to that, my lord.  Still weeping, he said to a gravedigger, ‘Well! and the coffin?’ ‘You were right,’ answered the man; ’I found it in the second row of the other grave.  It had the figure of a cross on it, formed by seven black nails.  But how could you know the place and the mark?’ ‘Alas! it is no matter,’ replied the old Jew, with bitter melancholy.  ’You see that I was but too well informed on the subject.  But where is the coffin?’ ’Behind the great tomb of black marble; I have hidden it there.  So make haste; for, in the confusion, nothing will be noticed.  You have paid me well, and I wish you to succeed in what you require.’”

“And what did the old Jew do with the coffin marked with the seven black nails?”

“Two men accompanied him, my lord, bearing a covered litter, with curtains drawn round it.  He lighted a lantern, and, followed by these two men, went towards the place pointed out by the gravedigger.  A stoppage, occasioned by the dead-carts, made me lose sight of the old Jew, whom I was following amongst the tombs.  Afterwards I was unable to find him.”

“It is indeed a strange affair.  What could this old Jew want with the coffin?”