they sat like that for a moment in silence"if i don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost.but i shall save her."he put out his lamp and felt a need to insult erik in the dark.
thrice over, he shouted:
"humbug!...humbug!...humbug!"
but, suddenly, he raised himself on his elbow.a cold sweat poured from his temples.two eyes, like blazing coals, had appeared at the foot of his bed.they stared at him fixedly, terribly, in the darkness of the night.
raoul was no coward; and yet he trembled.he put out a groping, hesitating hand toward the table by his bedside.he found the matches and lit his candle.the eyes disappeared.
still uneasy in his mind, he thought to himself:
"she told me that his eyes only ed in the dark.his eyes have disappeared in the light, but he may be there still."and he rose, hunted about, went round the room.he looked under his bed, like a child.then he thought himself absurd, got into bed again and blew out the candle.the eyes reappeared.
he sat up and stared back at them with all the courage he possessed.
then he cried:
"is that you, erik? man, genius, or ghost, is it you?"he reflected: "if it's he, he's on the balcony!"then he ran to the chest of drawers and groped for his revolver.
he opened the balcony window, looked out, saw nothing and dosed the window again.he went back to bed, shivering, for the night was cold, and put the revolver on the table within his reach.
the eyes were still there, at the foot of the bed.were they between the bed and the window-pane or behind the pane, that is to say, on the balcony? that was what raoul wanted to know.
he also wanted to know if those eyes belonged to a human being.
...he wanted to know everything.then, patiently, calmly, he seized his revolver and took aim.he aimed a little above the two eyes.