He watched them till his giddy head would bear it no longer, and he closed his eyes and slept.

When he awoke he was much better, but when he raised himself and turned towards the stone--there, by the bread and the broken pitcher, sat a dirty, ugly, wrinkled toad, gazing at him, Monsieur the Viscount, with eyes of yellow fire.
Monsieur the Viscount had long ago forgotten the toad which had alarmed his childhood; but his national dislike to that animal had not been lessened by years, and the toad of the prison seemed likely to fare no better than the toad of the chateau.

He dragged himself from his pallet, and took up one of the large damp stones which lay about the floor of the cell, to throw at the intruder.

He expected that when he approached it, the toad would crawl away, and that he could throw the stone after it; but to his surprise, the beast sat quite unmoved, looking at him with calm shining eyes, and, somehow or other, Monsieur the Viscount lacked strength or heart to kill it.

He stood doubtful for a moment, and then a sudden feeling of weakness obliged him to drop the stone, and sit down, while tears sprang to his eyes with the sense of his helplessness.
"Why should I kill it ?" he said, bitterly.