St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1886-06-19

ment the moon was Yelled by a cloud
the room hetame dark, and the vision
vanished! In vain Mehul struggled
with his fear; he waited, he watched,
he invoked again the lugubrious vision;
no supernatural phenomenon came to
trouble the rest of his night. and in the
! morning. overwhelmed with fatigue,
he fell into feverish sleep. He awoke
very late and tried to collect his thoughts
and fancies of the evening before.
| II must have been dreamingH' he
declared. as he hurried to dress to go
to the Opera House, where, there was
to be rehearsal Of .Irato." This is
what comes of being haunted by a fixed
idea-the brain at last becomes affected
by it, and the mind can not distin ruish
the reality from the dream. And vet
how clearly defined. how vivaciously
real were the impressions of that
dream. l could have sworn I was
awake-that saw my poor friend
looking sadly at me and trying to make
signs to me! But again-that little
hunchback!-wilat the devil was he
doing there All. bah! the whole
thing is absurd. | will not tell any,
body-not even my wife-about the
hallucination J have had; they would
only laugh at me, and they would be
iustifedr'
Every thing is forgotten in this
world, even the most startling impress
sions, and in the lapse Of time, if Me-
hui occasionally thought of his friend,
ne nevertheless completely forgot the
double apparition that had momentarily
terrified him.
Five years passed. The imperialed
Cesar had encireled his brows with the
crown cf France, and his glorious ac-
cession was being celebrated by public
festivities. Mehul, with his wife on
his arm, had taken his children to see
the llluminations at the Champs Ely
sees, like any other good citizen. He
stood in ecstacy before fountain of
fire playing in the center of the
grounds. when he suddenly discovered
the pockets Of his coat. With quick
movement he succeeded in grasping
the thief's hand and, wheeling round.
found himself face to face with little
hump-backed man. That villainous-
looking fellow!-he had seen him
somewhere before. Where had he al
ready observed that scoundrely face
and those apish hands? Like, flash
the recollection of his dream returned.
and i'm his astonishment he would GER
tainly have allowed the man to escape
had not the police seized him just in
time. Trembling with excitement.
Mehul went to the police station to
make his declarations: he charged the
man with having tried to rob him He
wished to charge him with something
else, but dared not. Was it possible to
accuse of murder a man whom one had
never seen except in dream?
And notwithstanding the temptation
to do so became stronger and stronger.
Mehul returned home, greatly agitated
by the souvenirs which this singular
incident had provoked. He went to
his bed, but without any inclination to
sleep; he lay thinking with his eyes
wide open, he argued with himself and |
a violent struggle ragged in his mind.
Ought he, or ought he not, to tell the |
what had happened to him9
Dream or vision. was it not after all as |
a warning from heaven that there had
appeared before him those ghastly
'hadows-that double apparition of
which he had never spoken to living
,oul?
Once again, exactly as she shone five
years before, the moon looked in be
ween the half-closed shutters, and the
,ells of the parish church chimed the
x,ff I,,cN .,f hot ckn mt |
white shape made itself visible against
he luminous beam-it seemed to stand
,efore the window. And with its COM
ng came the sound of sepulchral
whisper. "Avenge mer' "Yes. dear
riend, l swear to thee I shall avenge
hee..'' cried Mehul. risingin his bed.
Then all his hesitation passed away.
text day he went early to the police
eadquarters of the Champs Elysees
nd frankly told all the circumstances
f his strange vision to the commits
aire. The police officer would prob
bly, have told anv one else who visited
i'm upon the same errand to go to
ericho. But NJ. Mehul was the choir
Master of his Majesty, the Emperor,
nd a musician of acknowledged
enius, to whom the opera owed more
han one rare masterpiece. The police
fficial respectfully listened to his story
nd promised to consider the revela-
on in a serious way. To begin with,
e had the hunchback submitted to
host rigorous secret interrogation,
nd very astute Juge d'instruction
arassed him with every possible ques-
on that could terrify a guilty con-
cience.
These maneuvers succeeded beyond
xpectation. Before a week had elapsed
ne hunchback had been made to con-
ess that he was indeed the assassin of
|. -. 1t appeared that the wretch
ad, during the Reign of Terror, been
member of the Tape-dur (..Hard-
itters' )-those cut-throats whom the ,
ommittee of Public Safety had en- ,
loyed to excite riots. The overthrow {
that regime of fraternity or Death S
ad left this estimable citizen without
and rather than return to
is old trade of tailor, he sought to live t
of work. The indis- /
.etion of servant had enabled him to \
scover that M was going to
Ielun to deposit in a notary's hands Q
le price of a country residence which t