It is preferable, I think, to give the reader this
account, rather than continue to reproduce my conversation with
Rouletabille; for I should be afraid, in a history of this nature,
to add a word that was not in accordance with the strictest truth.
CHAPTER XV
The Trap
(EXTRACT FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF JOSEPH ROULETABILLE)
"Last night--the night between the 29th and 30th of October--" wrote
Joseph Rouletabille, "I woke up towards one o'clock in the morning.
Was it sleeplessness, or noise without?--The cry of the Bete du
Bon Dieu rang out with sinister loudness from the end of the park.
I rose and opened the window. Cold wind and rain; opaque darkness;
silence. I reclosed my window. Again the sound of the cat's weird
cry in the distance. I partly dressed in haste. The weather was
too bad for even a cat to be turned out in it. What did it mean,
then--that imitating of the mewing of Mother Angenoux' cat so near
the chateau? I seized a good-sized stick, the only weapon I had,
and, without making any noise, opened the door.
"The gallery into which I went was well lit by a lamp with a
reflector.
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