Presently I saw a dim figure kneeling on the end of the veranda and beating his breast -- in which I recognized Alphonse.

Not being able to understand his French talk or what on earth he was at, I called to him and asked him what he was doing.
'Ah, monsieur,' he sighed, 'I do make prayer for the souls of those whom I shall slay tonight.' 'Indeed,' I said, 'then I wish that you would do it a little more quietly.' Alphonse retreated, and I heard no more of his groans.

And so the time passed, till at length Mr Mackenzie called me in a whisper through the window, for of course everything had now to be done in the most absolute silence.

'Three o'clock,' he said: 'we must begin to move at half-past.' I told him to come in, and presently he entered, and I am bound to say that if it had not been that just then I had not got a laugh anywhere about me, I should have exploded at the sight he presented armed for battle.

To begin with, he had on a clergyman's black swallow-tail and a kind of broad-rimmed black felt hat, both of which he had donned on account, he said, of their dark colour.