“As I wished to wash and freshen these, I begged the servant to go and draw me a pitcher of cold water.

“In about five minutes she returned, declaring that the well was dry.  She had lowered the pitcher to the full extent of the cord and had touched the bottom, but on drawing the pitcher up again it was empty.  Mother Lecacheur, anxious to examine the thing for herself, went and looked down the hole.  She returned, announcing that one could see clearly something in the well, something altogether unusual.  But this no doubt was bundles of straw, which a neighbor had thrown in out of spite.

“I wished to look down the well also, hoping I might be able to clear up the mystery, and I perched myself close to the brink.  I perceived indistinctly a white object.  What could it be?  I then conceived the idea of lowering a lantern at the end of a cord.  When I did so the yellow flame danced on the layers of stone and gradually became clearer.  All four of us were leaning over the opening, Sapeur and Celeste having now joined us.  The lantern rested on a black-and-white indistinct mass, singular, incomprehensible.  Sapeur exclaimed: 

“’It is a horse.  I see the hoofs.  It must have got out of the meadow during the night and fallen in headlong.’

“But suddenly a cold shiver froze me to the marrow.  I first recognized a foot, then a leg sticking up; the whole body and the other leg were completely under water.

“I stammered out in a loud voice, trembling so violently that the lantern danced hither and thither over the slipper: 

“‘It is a woman!  Who-who-can it be?  It is Miss Harriet!’

“Sapeur alone did not manifest horror.  He had witnessed many such scenes in Africa.

“Mother Lecacheur and Celeste began to utter piercing screams and ran away.

“But it was necessary to recover the corpse of the dead woman.  I attached the young man securely by the waist to the end of the pulley rope and lowered him very slowly, watching him disappear in the darkness.  In one hand he held the lantern and a rope in the other.  Soon I recognized his voice, which seemed to come from the centre of the earth, saying: 

“‘Stop!’

“I then saw him fish something out of the water.  It was the other leg.  He then bound the two feet together and shouted anew: 

“‘Haul up!’

“I began to wind up, but I felt my arms crack, my muscles twitch, and I was in terror lest I should let the man fall to the bottom.  When his head appeared at the brink I asked: 

“‘Well?’ as if I expected he had a message from the drowned woman.

“We both got on the stone slab at the edge of the well and from opposite sides we began to haul up the body.

“Mother Lecacheur and Celeste watched us from a distance, concealed from view behind the wall of the house.  When they saw issuing from the hole the black slippers and white stockings of the drowned person they disappeared.