I  MET him the first time in a low cabaret in the Rivola, the cheapest quarter of Paris. How did I come there? Perhaps I am a student of the lower classes, and was pursuing my study there. Perhaps—but never mind, it makes no difference how I came there or who or what I am. This is not my story, it concerns the Prophet only.
As I sat watching the changing crowd I heard some men at the next table talking of a man sitting over in a corner who once had a fortune that he had won by forecasting events, but whose gift had left him suddenly, and now his money was gone and he was without a friend.
I looked over toward the corner curiously. Leaning against one of the supporting pillars of the low-studded room, I saw a pale, weary-looking man. I did not need to look at the glass on the table to learn what he was drinking. I[104] recognized by that sallow skin, the frequent convulsive starts, and the little catch in his breathing, an habitual absintheur.
He sat apart from the others, and no one spoke to him during the evening. Occasionally he ordered drink, and then sat for several minutes watching lovingly the green, opalescent lights in the liquid before him.
I had forgotten all about him, when, chancing to glance in his direction a few minutes later, I saw that an altercation was taking place. The Prophet was having an argument with the waiter over the payment of his bill. I saw him thrust his hand in his pockets, searching desperately for a coin, but in vain.
Hoping that perhaps I might learn something of the man’s story, I arose, and, sitting down opposite him, I threw out a few coins, telling the waiter to take out the payment of my friend’s bill, and to bring us a bottle of Vie de Anise.
Do you think he was offended? You do not know the action of that insidious poison. Honor, ambition, everything, are but as baubles to the devotee of absinthe.
“Vie de Anise, did you say?” he asked, eagerly, leaning over the table. “It is years since I have tasted any of that.”
I sat with him until nearly midnight; but try as I would I could not draw the man out. Several times I skillfully directed the conversation[105] in the desired channel, but each time he as skillfully eluded me.
He was in terrible condition. His nerves were completely shattered. He could scarcely sit still for a minute; and his hand shook so, as he raised the glass to his lips, that the green liquor spilled and ran over on to the sawdust floor. At last, as it was nearly time for the place to close, I asked him point-blank to tell me the story of his life.
He looked at me strangely. I do not know, it may have been the drink, but someway he did not look like the man I had sat down with a few hours before. The tired, weary look had completely disappeared, his face was flushed, and his eyes were as bright as a child’s.
“Not to-night,” he said, in answer to my request, “but sometime. Sometime when I can prove to you my right to the title, I will tell you why they used to call me The Prophet. For, sometime, the gift will come back to me again.” He leaned over the table and looked me full in the face with those unnaturally bright eyes as he whispered: “It is coming back soon, I can feel it. The false prophet shall redeem himself.”
I did not see the man again for many weeks, for I was busy with other things. One night, however, I dropped into the place and seated myself in a corner. I had scarcely taken off my gloves when I felt some one touch me on the[106] shoulder, and, as I looked up, I saw the Prophet standing near. I scarcely recognized him, he was so changed. His cheeks had great sunken places in them, and the skin had a waxy and corpse-like appearance. But his eyes were brighter than ever before as he said, eagerly:
“It has come back again, as I told you it would. To-night I will tell you the story you wished to know before. Where have you been so long?”
I told him that I had been very busy since I last saw him, and, ordering a bottle of his favorite drink, I waited with interest for what I felt must prove a strange and interesting tale. He waited till the liquor came, and, after taking a deep draught, he told me the following story:
“You have probably heard the men here telling how I used to be a prophet and could foretell events, and that once I failed. What you have not heard, though, is how I came to fail; but I will tell you to-night. I did not always have the gift, neither did I study and cultivate it. It came to me as an inspiration,—and I abused that gift,” he added, sadly.
“The first time was just before de Arnault was killed. As I sat at this very table drinking, a peculiar feeling came over me, a kind of exaltation. I seemed to be drifting out of myself and to have no part with my surroundings. Then, gradually, I began to see a great crowd in a public square. A man was sitting in a[107] carriage near the Arch of Triumph, reviewing some troops. I could not see his face, for there was a mist about it. Suddenly, out of the crowd, I saw a man working his way toward the carriage. He reached it, and, drawing a revolver from his pocket, he fired three shots full at the breast of the man in the carriage. Then the mist which had been about his face cleared, and I recognized the Count de Arnault.
“When I came to myself the waiter was standing by my chair asking if I were ill. I must have been acting queerly, for as I went out everyone looked at me curiously.
“Someway, strange as it probably seems to you, I did not pay much attention to the vision, for my brain is not exactly right, and I see many things after I have been drinking which would frighten most men. Imagine my horror a week later, however, when, as the Count was reviewing the Imperial troops at the Place de la Concorde, I saw enacted in reality what I had seen in my vision.
“Then, for a year, I had those strange visitations, during which future events were revealed to me exactly as the............