When I recovered my senses I found myself lying in my bed; my father and mother were standing at the side of it, and our doctor was holding my hand.

“The serpent! the serpent!” were my first words.

Dr. Brissaud looked at my father, who said a few words to him in a low tone. My head felt so weak that I seemed to hear his voice from a long distance; I succeeded, however, in distinguishing these words: “He went into the garden without a light to look for his mother’s scissors, and in feeling for them he must have put his hand on a coil of rope used for hanging up the linen to dry, and which was left under the garden seat.” Upon that I went off to sleep.

I kept my bed for a long time after this, for I was very ill. I was continually having dreams and fancies, in which all the fantastic and horrid creatures conjured up by Montézuma were perpetually playing a part. Always the same: Croquemitaine, the Colonel’s horse, the monkey in the Jardin des Plantes, the little boy who lived opposite who put out his tongue at me, Montézuma himself and Dr. Lombalot, who both made faces at me, and, at............