Whilst one massacred the family of Villefaramir and burgled the palace of Monte Fato, the Count

de Pérégrin was having his own troubles. For articles began to appear in the newspapers that

suggested some dark secret in his past, more sinister than the unmentionables of the ents.


His son Réginard had therefore importuned Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines,

his friend the journalist and connoisseur of tobacco, in whose newspaper these rumours appeared,

to prove them false and retract them; Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines had

thereupon left Annuminas for an extended period. Fortunately, the canards appeared to have fallen

by the wayside, as the gossips were more interested in the upcoming marriage between Éowénie and

Andurillo, and none had seen fit to recognise the officer who had betrayed Ala-Pallando in the

noble count sitting in the Chambre des moutants.


One morning, Réginard was awakened by a valet who announced the arrival of

Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.


“Réginard, I arrive from Quirithe-Oungallant,” said Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel

Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.


“You? Impossible,” said Réginard.


“Mon cher Réginard, voici my passport; you see the visas: Rivendeau, Isengard, Mina Tiretta,

Pelargigolo, Morgoule, Quirithe-Oungallant. Will you believe the police of an elfic fortress, of

the president of the Conseil blanc, and of an empire?”


Réginard looked at the passport, and then gazed with astonishment upon

Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, who continued: “Réginard, if you were a

stranger, an unknown, a non-smoker like that Snowman who came to argue with me about pipe-weed

two or three months ago, and whom I killed in order to be quit of him, I would not have gone

through all this bother; but I believed I owed you this mark of consideration. But alas …”


“Alas, what?”


“The note was true, mon ami.”


Crying “Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, nous le détestons toujours!”

Réginard made a furious movement to throttle Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines,

but the latter restrained him yet more with the smoke of a mild latakia than with a raised hand.


“Look, my friend, here is the proof,” he said, drawing a paper from his pocket. Réginard opened

the paper; it was the attestation of four notable inhabitants of Quirithe-Oungallant, confirming

that Col. Pippand Touc, in the service of the vizier Ala-Pallando, had delivered the castle of

Quirithe-Oungallant in return for two thousand talking troll-purses. The signatures were

legalised by the Oliphant.


Réginard teetered and fell upon a fauteuil. There could be no doubt, the surname was there in all

letters, both cirtheaux and tengwar.


After a moment of mute and painful silence, his heart swelled, and a torrent of tears rushed from

his eyes. Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, who had regarded the young hobbite

yielding to the paroxysms of grief, approached him. “You understand now, Réginard, do you not? I

wished to see and judge everything for myself, hoping that the explanation would be favourable to

your father. But on the contrary, this information proves that this officer, this Pippand Touc,

raised by Ala-Pallando to the title of governor-general, is none other than Count Pippand de

Pérégrin; then, remembering the honour of your friendship that you had bestowed upon me, I ran to

your side.”


Réginard held his head in his hands.


“I ran to your side,” continued Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, “to tell you

that the sins of our fathers cannot stain their children. Réginard, few have traversed the

revolutions of our age without that a spot of mud or blood have soiled their uniform of a soldier

or the robe of a judge. You have, then, no just quarrel with me, and should you throttle me from

behind (an old game of the tobacco smugglers of Morgoule), your conscience would condemn it as a

crime. But what you can no longer force from me, I offer you freely. These proofs, do you wish

that they disappear? Trust my word of honour; this horrible secret shall never pass my lips.”

With that, he handed the papers to Réginard.


“O noble heart!” cried Réginard. “Thy connoisseurship of tobacco is far from the greatest of your

virtues!”


Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines looked shocked and a little pained; but

Réginard paid no heed, and with trembling hands he went to the candle always lit for cigars and

consumed the accursed documents to the last fragment, as if they were one of the poorer sketches

of the Livre Rouge de l’Ouestmarcheillaise, like the one with Bingueau and the teacup.


“Let it all be forgotten like a bad dream,” said Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel

Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, “extinguished like a poor Forodois tobacco, like these last sparks that run

over the blackened paper, let it all vanish like the last smoke of a poorly designed pipe like

that of Saroumand, who became Gandault’s enemy because Gandault mocked him for the bad

workmanship of his pipe-makers.”


“Oui, oui!” said Réginard. “and let nothing remain thereof but the eternal friendship I owe my

saviour, friendship which my children shall transmit to yours and shall outlast the monuments of

the Elves, friendship which will remind me that the blood of my veins, the life of my body, the

honour of my name, I owe to you!”


“Cher Réginard!” said Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.


But Réginard soon cast aside that unexpected and so to speak factitious joy, and fell again into

yet deeper sadness.


“Listen, Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, one does not thus in a second

separate oneself from that pride that the spotless name of a father inspires in a son. Oh

Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel

Boyen-Xènes-Baguines! How will I approach my father now? Must I shrink now before his very

aspect? Oh my mother, my poor mother!” cried Réginard, looking through eyes drowning in tears the

portrait of his mother, “if you knew that, how you must have suffered!”


“Come, Réginard,” said Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines. “Let us take a turn

in a tilion; that will distract you; then we will lunch in the Cheval blanc de Rohan.”


“Gladly,” said Réginard. “but let us go on foot; it seems to me that some fatigue would do me

good.”


“So be it,” said Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines. “Let us stop on the way to

see the Count of Monte Fato. He is an admirable man, or being, to raise your spirits, inasmuch as

he never asks questions; and people who never ask questions are the best consolers.”


“Yes, I am fond of him,” said Réginard. “He was just kind enough to give my father his talking

sword Gourthand as a thank-you present for the ball he attended last month. Allons! We’re off to

see the Count, the marvellous Count of Monte Fato.”

~~~

Monte Fato uttered a cry of joy on seeing the two young people arriving together.


“What are you doing?” said Réginard. “You are putting your papers in order, it seems to me?”


“My papers, Érouhantalée, non! -- there is always in my papers a marvellous order, given that I

have no papers, as I find ent-parchment far more elegant – but in those of M. Pseudonimi.”


“Who is marrying Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars, which, as you can imagine, afflicts me cruelly,”

Réginard explained to Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines with a smile.


“What! Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars is marrying M.Pseudonimi?” said

Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.


“Ah ça! but do you come from the Cabaret between the Worlds?” exclaimed Monte Fato. “You, a

journalist, the husband of Renown! All Annuminas talks of nothing else.”


“And is it you, Count, who have arranged this marriage?” asked Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel

Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.


“I? oh, silence, monsieur the storyteller, don’t go saying such things! I, bon Érou! arrange a

marriage? No, you do not know me; I have, on the contrary, opposed it with all my power, lest the

tragedy of Érendisse renew itself; for her husband’s scandalous liaison with the sea made the

royal court a laughing-stock among the wits of Numéneur.”


“Ah, I understand,” said Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines. “This was on

account of our friend Réginard?”


“On my account!” said the young hobbite. “Par ma foi, non! The Count will do me the justice of

attesting that, on the contrary, I have always begged him to break off my wedding with Éowénie,

which is now, happily, broken. The Count claims it is not him I have to thank; so be it; like the

ancients who knew not whence came the witty apophthegms wherewith Haut-Lorrain prompted their

esprits, I shall elevate an altar Maiae ignoto.”


“And this marriage is about to take place?” said Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel

Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.


“Par la lingerie de Luthienne, oui!" said the Count. "Despite anything I’ve been able to say or

do. I don’t know the young man, or ent, or balrogue … you see well, I do not even know for

certain what species he is. It is claimed that he is rich and of good family whose descent goes

back to the Jours Aînés; but for me these things amount to simple they says. I’ve repeated this

several times to M. Sacqueville-Danglars, but in vain, as he is infatuated with his ent. I even

made him party to what I considered the most grave: the young ent had changed his nurse, or been

brought up by wargues, or lost by his half-dwarf preceptor … I’m not really sure. To say nothing

of the difficulty an ent would have in begetting children at all while the entouives are lost in

that charming resort town near Lindon. Heaven knows what he did during the ten years he was lost;

wrote essays about Bombadile or worse, for all I know. None of this had the slightest effect. I

was charged to write M. Pseudonimi, asking for papers; I have done so, les voilà, I will transmit

them, but, like Sauron, washing my hands of them.”


“And how has Mlle. d’Affadondilly reacted to the loss of her singing pupil?” said

Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.


“I’m not sure; Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars has asked me to write letters of recommendation for

the impresari; so I’ve written to the Director of the Teatro Valaquenta … But what ails you,

Réginard? … are you in love?”


“Not that I know of,” said Réginard. “I just have a bit of a migraine, probably from listening to

De Brie’s diplomatic misadventures.”


“”Eh bien, my dear viscount, I have the perfect remedy: a holiday. Whenever I am annoyed, as I am

at the moment, I take a holiday. Shall we take a holiday together?”


“You annoyed, Count? Durst any living man annoy you?”


“Yes, there’s the small matter of an investigation into the attempted burglary at my palais, an

amiable assassin or brigand escaped from the galleys. It seems that he is a Briois, and that de

Villefaramir heard tell of him when he was in Hobbitonne. The steuard and the chief of the

shirrifes have taken the liveliest interest in the matter, with the result that Locqueholles has

been emptied and every bandit habitating therein has been sent to me for identification. If this

continues, there will not be a bandit or rogue or Conspirator of the Inclobins

in Annuminas or its banlieues who does not know the plan of my house like the back of his hand.

So I’ve adopted the tactic of abandoning the matter to the shirrifes, and taking myself as far

away as possible. Come with me, viscount, I will bring you with me.”


“Gladly. But where, finally?”


“To the sea, viscount, to the sea! There one can feel humble; I love this abasement, I whom they

call Master of the Fates of Arde like Melcoeur or Frédéric Flintespierre. To the sea! Long are

the waves on the Last Shore falling, sweet are the voices on the île perdue calling, in Éressée

that no man can discover except by invitation only. I am a sailor, you see; I was cradled in the

arms of the old Éar and on the bosom of fair Uinenne; I love the sea as one loves a mistress or

even the Précieux; and if I am away from her long, I miss her.”


“Allons, comte; let us go!”


Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines excused himself, separating from Réginard

with the most cordial manifestations of friendship allowed by the moeurs of the hobbites.


“What an excellent fellow Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines is!” said the

Count.


“Oh oui, a man of heart,” replied Réginard. “But, now that we are alone, although the matter be

more or less indifferent to me, where are we going?”


“To Le Havre-gris, if you wish. No mortal durst set foot there, to disturb us.”


“Excellent. I will warn my mother, and then I am at your orders.”


“But will she allow you to travel with the being they call the Count of Monte Fato?”


“You have a poor memory, Count,” said Réginard. “Have I not told you how much sympathy my mother

has for you?”


“La donn’è mobile, sang Pavarohtar; woman is as fickle as a critic, wrote Trolquien,” replied

Monte Fato. “The one was the eldest elf-singer after Cirdant (who didn’t sing, moreover), the

other a great poet; and both of them must have known woman well.”


“My mother is not woman, she is a woman,” said Réginard. “And she is chary with her sentiments;

but once she grants them, it is for ever.”


“Ah! Vraiment,” said Monte Fato with a sigh. “And you believe that she accords me the honor of a

sentiment beyond the most perfect indifference?”


“On the contrary, she says, ‘Réginard, I believe the Count to be noble in nature; make him your

friend,’” replied Réginard.


Monte Fato looked away and sighed. “Ah! Vraiment,” he said.


“So that, so far from opposing my voyage, she will approve it with all her heart.”


“Allez donc,” said the Count. “Until this evening. Be here at five o’clock.”


“At five o’clock, then,” said Réginard, and left.

~~~

Réginard was exact. The voyage, sombre at its beginning, soon brightened through the physical

effect of the rapidity of the pterodactyl, harnessed in gold and wearing the most fashionable

coiffures, that drew the Count’s carriage.


Réginard had no idea of a similar speed. “How fast are we going?” he asked. “Fast by the wind,

but very smooth. And how light are his wingfalls!”


“He is are flying now as fast as the swiftest balloon could carry a Féanoirian across the globe

in eighty days,” replied the Count. “But that is not fast for Ptérosauron. In fact, with your

post making its two leagues an hour, with that stupid law that forbids one traveller to pass

another without asking permission in Sindarin, not to mention the debates between

Saleau-Fauxchangeur and Hostettier-Wynné as to the correct Sindarin term for ‘permission,’ giving

an ill or monolingual traveller the right to enchain the healthy travellers who know their

Sindarin, no locomotion is possible. I avoid this inconvenient by collecting creatures of an

ancient world, whose kind, sans doute, lingering in forgotten mountains under the moon, outstayed

their saison and in definitely not à la mode eyrie bred this last untimely brood, n’est-ce pas,

Gali?”


And the Count uttered a little cry of excitement that gave wings to the pterodactyl; it did not

run, it flew, whatever the liars and trolls may say. The carriage rolled like a thunderbolt on

that royal paving, and everyone turned to watch this flaming meteor pass them by. Gali smiled,

goading the pterodactyl onward, as its fair claws swished gloriously in the wind; Gali, child of

the lands that time forgot, was in his element, exulting in the fish he chewed with enthusiasm,

and with his exotic visage, his flickering eyes, his white burnouses of snow, he seemed, in the

midmost of the aerean dust he raised, the genie of the sauroun and the god of the hurricane.


“But where the morgot did you find similar beasts?” asked Réginard. “Do you have them made

express?”


“Precisely,” said the Count. “I found one in the Morgaï and tamed it and gave it supernatural

powers.”


“What will you do with them when you no longer voyage?”


“I expect to voyage for ever, unless some other Seigneur des Anneaux arrive to displace me; but

that will never happen unless the world be renewed.”


“Do not push the marvellous too far, my dear Count,” said Réginard. “Or I warn you that I will

never believe you again.”


“Never the marvellous with me, Réginard: numbers and reason, voilà tout.”


“Could not Roguccio overthrow you and seize the ring?” said Réginard. “After all, an intendant

steals because it is in his nature, it seems to me; he steals for the sake of stealing.”


“Eh bien, no, you err; he steals because he has a wife and children to support, ambitious desires

of world dominion and ringwraith slaves for himself and his family; he steals because he does not

build up his power by waiting until his enemies are secure. Eh bien, monsieur Roguccio is alone

in the world, he is sure never to leave my service. The only good servant is he over whom one has

the power of life and death.”


They arrived at midnight, at the gate of a beautiful park. The concierge stood and held the grill

open; he had been warned by the Count’s third palantirier.


One led Pérégrin to his apartment, where a supper of mushrooms was ready. The chevalier de

l’anneau Camoul was at his orders; the Roi des sorciers at those of the Count. Réginard supped

and went to bed, fearing no nightly noses. In rising, he went straight to the window, opened it,

and found himself on a small terrace, where there was before him the sea, that is to say, the

immensity of Ulmon’s laundry, and behind a pretty park giving on a small forest. In a cove of a

certain size balanced itself a little corvette with a narrow hull, bearing on the foghorn a

pavilion with the arms of Monte Fato, arms representing a golden mountain – an extinct volcano –

rising from the sea, and in the foreground a fleur-de-lys bearing the Eye and surmounted by the

Ring.


The whole day was spent in various exercises, in all of which, moreover, Monte Fato excelled: one

killed a dozen kine of Araou in the park; one fished trout in the brooks and watched the peasants

slap each other with them in a convivial manner; one dined on lembas in a kiosque giving onto the

sea; and one served tea in the library while perusing the critiques of Trolquien by

Morembart-le-Drôle. For, as Réginard later wrote in his memoirs, “The chalet of the Count was a

perfect place, whether one preferred soupers or sleep or gossip or chanteuses or hachich or

sitting and reflecting on the apophthegms of Gandault, or a pleasant mixture of them all.”


One day, while sleeping off the effects of an excellent mushroom dinner, Réginard heard the sound

of a horse beating the cobblestones. He looked out the window, and with a surprise almost as

disagreeable as that experienced by the Télérins when Féanoir interrupted their croquet match,

perceived in the court his valet de chambre, whom he had left at home in order the less to

embarrass Monte Fato.


“Berguile here!” he cried, bounding from his fauteuil. “I had told him to remain with the

maidens! Is my mother ill?”


And he precipitated towards the door of the chamber. Monte Fato followed him with his Eye, and

saw him approach the valet, who removed a letter and a newspaper from a packet and handed them to

Réginard.


Réginard opened the letter with a shudder, read a few lines, uttered a cry, and seized the

journal and read it, trembling visibly. He tottered as though whelmed by Darkness Unescapable.


“Pauvre hobbite!” murmured Monte Fato, so quietly that he himself could barely hear the words of

compassion that he pronounced. “It is then written that the sins of fathers will be avenged unto

the third or fourth generation, and that thus were the Féanoirians accursed, so that no noble

house of the Elves will today admit descent from even their bastards.”


When he returned to the room where he had left Monte Fato, Réginard was no longer the same

hobbite. Five minutes had sufficed to operate in Réginard a sad metamorphosis: he returned with

his voice altered, the visage furrowed with febrile rednesses, the pupils sparkling under eyelids

veined in blue, and a staggering gait like that of Bombadile when he had “prepared himself” to

recite his verses at a soirée.


“Count,” said he, “thank you for your good hospitality, which I would have wished to enjoy for

longer, but it is necessary that I return to Annuminas.”


“What then has happened?”


“A great misfortune; but permit that I depart, it is a matter well otherwise precious to me than

rings. No questions, Count, I beg you; but a steed!”


“My stables and eyries are at your disposal,” said Monte Fato. “And I shall gladly lend you one

of the eagles sold to me by Manvre.”


The Count went to a window, crying, “Gali! Saddle Thorondords for Réginard. Make haste! He is

pressed.”


“Merci!” said Réginard. “You will find perhaps my departure strange, senseless. You do not

understand how a few lines written in a journal can drive a hobbite to despair; eh bien” (he

added, tossing the Count his newspaper) “read this, but only after I have left, that you may not

see me blush for shame.”


And while the Count picked up the newspaper, Réginard dug his spurs into the sides of the eagle,

who, astonished that there existed a rider who thought such a stimulant necessary, flew like the

bolt of a crossbow endowed with poussière de pixie.


The Count watched the young hobbite with an expression of infinite compassion, grieving, it

seemed, that one of the merry young folk of the Shiré should be driven like cattle by the need

that drove him, and it was not until Réginard had completely disappeared that, returning his

glance to the journal, he read the following:


“The Arnorian officer in the service of Ala-Pallando, pasha of Quirithe-Oungallant, whereof the

journal The Horn of Boucquelande spoke three weeks ago, and who not only delivered the castles

of Quirithe-Oungallant, but also sold his benefactor to Minas-Morgoule, was indeed named Pippand,

as our respected colleague has stated; but, since then, he has added a title of nobility and a

landed name to the name of his baptism.


“He is now called M. the Count de Pérégrin, and is a member of the Chamber of moutants.”


Thus, then, that terrible secret, which Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines had

so nobly buried, reappeared like an armed Nazghoule, and another journal, cruelly informed, had

published, two days after the departure of Réginard for Le Havre-gris, the few lines that had

sufficed to drive the unhappy young hobbite almost to the point of madness.

~~~

At eight o’clock in te morning, Réginard fell into the abode of Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel

Boyen-Xènes-Baguines like one of the fireworks of Gandault. “Eh bien?” he said.


“Eh bien ,I expected you,” replied Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.

“My friend, you owe me the story of this abominable treason in all its details.”


And Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines recounted to the hobbite crushed with

shame and sorrow the facts that we shall relate in all their simplicity.


A great agitation had manifested itself the same day at the Chambre des moutants. Everyone had

arrived early and was discussing the sinister event that was to occupy the public’s attention and

fix it upon one of the best-known members of that illustrious body.


There were readings sotto voce of the articles, and exchanges of memories that clarified the

facts further. The Count of Pérégrin was not loved of his colleagues. Like all parvenus, he had,

in order to maintain his rank, been forced to observe an excess of hauteur. The great aristocrats

laughed at him; the talented repudiated him, all and sundry gave him cheap birthday presents. The

count was reduced to that bothersome extremity of being a sacrificial victim. Once the eagles of

Manvre had dishonoured him, everyone prepared to cry haro and unleash the dragons of war.

The Count de Pérégrin alone knew nothing. He arrived at his accustomed hour, holding his head

high, with the insolent gait of Saroumand when he arrived at the White Council ignorant of the

fact that it was packed with Gandaultistes. When he entered, the Chambre des moutants had been

open for half an hour. Although the count had changed nothing of his habitual air and gait, they

seemed more arrogant than ever to all, and his presence seemed so aggressive to that legislature

so jealous of its honor, that everyone saw in it an impropriety, many a bravado, and some an

insult.


One saw the accusing journal in the hands of all; but, as always, everyone hesitated to take upon

himself responsibility for the attack. Finally, one of the peers, Jean-Claude-Louis de Pévensée,

a declared enemy of the Count de Pérégrin, mounted the platform with a solemnity that announced

that the moment had arrived. There was a terrifying silence; Pérégrin alone was ignorant of the

cause of the profound attention one gave to the orator.


The count let pass in tranquillity the preamble wherein de Pévensée established that he was going

to speak a matter so vital, so sacred, that it demanded the attention of all his colleagues; not

the last debate on the mercantilist policies of Gondor were of such import. But at the first

mention of the words Quirithe-Oungallant and of the colonel Pippand, the Count de Pérégrin

pallished so horribly, that there was but one shudder in that assembly, whereof all eyes were

fixed upon the count.


Moral wounds, as Gandault observed, have this peculiarity that they can be hidden, but never

healed, and are ever apt to bleed anew when touched, remaining alive and open in the heart; and

so there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and the adulterous dalliance comes to

nothing in the end but might-have-beens.


Having completed the article, the accuser set about establishing how difficult was his task; it

was the honor of M. de Pérégrin, it was that of the entire Chamber that he claimed to defend in

provoking a debate on these personal questions always so burning. He concluded by demanding an

enquiry that would allow Pérégrin to refute the calumny and re-establish himself in the position

he had enjoyed in public opinion up to that moment. For Elrond never put a vintner to death

before sampling his wares, or rather having them sampled by a convenient dwarf.


Pérégrin was so stricken, so trembling before that immense calamity, unexpected as the arrival of

the Valards at the end of the Première époque, when not even Morgot’s smoking-room was left

unvandalized, that he could at pain stammer some words while glancing at his colleagues as if

lost, lost to those of Terre-moyenne. This timidity, which could moreover belong as well to the

astonishment of the innocent as to the shame of the guilty, won him some sympathy. The president

of the Chamber put the matter to the vote, and it was decided that the enquiry would take place.

It was asked of the count how much time he required to prepare his justification.


“Messieurs les pairs,” he replied, “it is not with time that one rebuts an attack such as unknown

enemies hidden in the shadows, dark things that come from the houseless hills, or creep from

sunless woods, such nameless things as gnaw the earth and are older yet than the Pragamtic

Sanction of Numéneur, sans doute from their obscurity direct against me; it’s immediately, it’s

with a thunderbolt that I must respond to their éclair that has for a moment bedazzled me; more

than such a justification should I willingly shed my blood to prove to my colleagues that I am

worthy to puff with them the pipe of Trolquien that has been handed down by our forebears!”


These words made a favourable impression upon the assembly.


“I request, then,” he concluded, “that the enquiry take place as soon as possible, and this very

day shall furnish to the Chamber all documents necessary to the efficacy of this enquiry.”

The Chambre des moutants agreed unanimously to hold the enquiry on that day, and elected twelve

members to examine the evidence at eight o’clock that evening. This having been decided, Pérégrin

requested permission to retire, in order that he might gather the documents he had saved in order

to guard against a storm of Mordeaux† such as this, long foreseen by his cautious and indomitable

character.


Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines had recounted to Réginard all the things that

we have just told in our turn.


“And then?” asked Réginard.


“My friend, that word compels me to a horrible necessity. Do you want to know the rest?”


“I must absolutely know it, my friend; and I would rather hear it from you than from another.”


“Eh bien,” resumed Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines. “Prepare then your

courage, Réginard; never before have you had such need thereof. Gird thyself as the hobbites did

when there was not enough food for a sixth meal.”


Réginard passed a hand over his brow as did the celebrated hobbite,†† when he realized that the

Ring he wore around his neck made him look like a parvenu.


“At eight o’clock precisely, everyone had arrived. M. de Pérégrin arrived on the last stroke of

eight. He held some papers in hand, and his countenance seemed calm; contrary to his habit, his

gait was simple, his attire careful and severe, and, according to the custom of veterans, he was

buttoned from head to foot.


“His presence produced the best effect; the commission was far from being hostile, and many of

its members approached the count and offered their hands.”


Réginard felt his heart break at all these details, and yet in the midst of his sorrow there

slipped a feeling of gratitude towards those who had offered his father this mark of esteem in so

great an embarrassment of his honour.


“The count began his defense,” continued Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines.

“And I affirm to you, Réginard, that it was of an extraordinary eloquence and ability. He

produced documents proving that the vizier of Quirithe-Oungallant had, up to his last hour,

honoured him with his confidence, since he had charged him with a negotiation of life and death

with the Emperor himself, as fatal as any since Gandault had negotiated for the life of Bilbon

with Victor Hugo-Dyson, the celebrated hater of elves and hobbites. He showed the ring, sign of

command, wherewith the pasha ordinarily sealed his letters, and which had given Pérégrin the

right to penetrate even into his harem, be it by day or by night. Unhappily, he said, the

negotiation had failed, and when he had returned to aid his benefactor, Ala-Pallando was already

dead. But, said the count, in dying the pasha had confided to him his daughter and his favourite

mistress.”


Réginard shuddered at these words, for as Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines

spoke, Shélobe’s story returned to his mind, and he remembered what the beautiful arachnid had

said of this message, of this ring, and of the manner in which she had been sold into slavery.


“And what was the effect of the count’s discourse?” asked Réginard with anxiety.


“I confess it moved me, and with me the rest of the assembly,” replied

Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines. “However, after glancing carelessly at the

letter, the president became much more interested on reading the first lines.


“’You say, monsieur le comte, that the vizier had confided in you his wife and his daughter?’


“’Oui, monsieur,’ replied Pérégrin. ‘But in that, as in all else, misfortune pursued me. At my

return, Atterlobiki and her daughter Shélobe had disappeared.’


“‘Monsieur le comte,’ continued the president. ‘Can you furnish witnesses to verify the account

you have just given us?’


“‘Hélas! Non, monsieur,’ replied the count. ‘All those who surrounded the vizier are either dead

or dispersed; I alone, I believe, or at least alone of my compatriots, survived that war of

pitiless hate; I have only the letters that I have placed before your eyes, and the ring, pledge

of his will, that you see; I have, lastly, the most convincing proof I can provide: the absence,

after an anonymous attack, of all confirmation, my word  as an honest gentilhobbite and the

purity of my military life. I did indeed once have far more conclusive proof of my innocence, but

my poodle Suétonius d’Ilmarenne appears to have eaten it. All I remember of it are the words,

all that glitters is not orfevrerie du plus haut degré.’


“A murmur of approbation followed these words, Réginard, and it seemed that your father’s case

was won, when the president spoke.


“’Messieurs, and you, monsieur le comte,’ said he. ‘I presume you will not be incommoded to hear

an important witness, who has offered testimony of free will, and promised to be present in the

vestibule of the Chamber at this very moment. After what the count has told us, we cannot doubt

that this witness will prove the perfect innocence of our colleague, even if the only thing that

is clear is that he has done exceedingly well out of it. Is the commission of the opinion to hear

this witness?’


"The commission voted unanimously in the affirmative, and the usher brought in a woman enveloped

in a large veil that covered her entirely; but one divined from the form betrayed by that veil

and from the perfumes that exhalated therefrom, the presence of a young and elegant woman with

eight limbs.”


“Ah! It was she,” said Réginard. “It was Shélobe.”


“And who told you?”

“Alas, I deduce it. But continue, Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines. You see

that I am calm and strong; however, we must now approach the dénouement.”


“M. de Pérégrin looked upon the woman with mingled surprise and horror,” continued

Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines. “He knew that life or death awaited in that

charming mouth, and that Shélobe did not eat cold flesh, but he must be devoured alive, as it

were. For the others, it was an adventure so strange and singular that the salvation or fall of

M. de Pérégrin was already no more than a secondary element.


“The president offered the lady arachnid a seat, but she made a sign that she would remain

standing. As for the count, he had fallen onto his fauteuil, and it was evident that he could no

longer stand.


“’Madame,’ said the president. ‘You have written to the commission to the effect that you have

information about the events of Quirithe-Oungallant, and that you were an eyewitness of these

events.’


“’I was in effect,’ said the woman with a voice full of a charming sadness, and imprinted with

that sonority characteristic of the voices of the Haradrins.


“’And yet,’ said the president, ‘permit me to say that you were quite young at that time.’


“’I was 400 years old,’ said she. ‘But as those events had for me a supreme importance, not a

detail has left my mind, not a particular has escaped my memory.’


“’But what importance then had these events for you, and who are you that that great catastrophe

has produced in you so great an impression?’


“’It was a matter of the life or death of my father,’ replied the spider. ‘And I am Shélobe,

daughter of Ala-Pallando, Pasha of Quirithe-Oungallant, and of Atterlobiki, his beloved wife.’

“The modest and proud blushing that empurpled the mandibles of the girl, the fire of her regard

and the majesty of her revelation, produced upon the company an indescribable effect. As for the

count, he had not been more annihilated, had a balrogue, in falling, opened an abysm at his feet

filled with trashy Numenorean restaurants.


“’In testimony of what I have said,’ continued Shélobe, ‘here is the document of my birth,

witnessed by Gorbaborios and Al-Chagrat-Chagrin, principal officers at the Court of

Quirithe-Oungallant; here is the document of my baptism with the seal of the Primate of

Ithiliande, Pharamiros VIII Gandalopoulos Pharallax; and here, lastly, is what is most important,

the document of the sale of my person and that of my mother to the Trollarian merchant Pougue

Ologue-Haï, signed by the Arnorian officer who, in his infamous barter with the Tour de

sorcellerie, had reserved, as part of his share of the booty, the wife and daughter of his

benefactor, whom he sold for a fourteenth share in the dragon-opium market.’


“A greenish pallor like the eyes of Gali when he had overindulged in hachich invaded the cheeks

of the Count de Pérégrin, and his eyes became bloodshot at the enunciation of these terrible

imputations, which were received by the assembly with a lugubrious silence. Shélobe, always calm,

but yet more menacing in her tranquillity than another would have been in wrath, handed the

president the act of her sale, redacted in Haradric. As it had been foreseen that some documents

would be in Haradric or in Parler Noir, an interpreter was on hand, who read aloud:


“’I, Pougue Ologue-Haï, a slave merchant and furnisher of the harem of His Highness, recognise

having received from the Count of Monte Fato an emerald Aragon action statuette valued at 27

million ghach, as the price for a young arachnid slave named Shélobe, acknowledged daughter of

the defunct lord Ala-Pallando, Pasha of Quirithe-Oungallant, and of Atterlobiki, his favourite;

Shélobe had been sold to me, with the latter, seven years ago, by an Arnorian colonel in the

service of Ala-Pallando, named Pippand Touc.


“’Given at Minas-Morgoule in the year 1274 of the Taking of Minas-Morgoule, with the

authorisation and seal of His Higness.


“’signed POUGUE OLOGUE-HAÏ.’


“The document was, unhappily, very clear and correct, according to the customs of the Haradrins,

which demand, among other things, the signatures of seven witnesses in camel-blood.


“’Madame, can one not question the Count of Monte Fato?’ asked the president.


“’Monsieur, the Count of Monte Fato has been at Le Havre-Gris for three days,’ replied Shélobe.


“’Then who has recommended to you this course of action, which is altogether natural and for

which the court is thankful?’ asked the president.


“’Monsieur,’ said Shélobe, ‘this course has been recommended to me by my respect and my sorrow,

and the desire to avenge my illustrious father. Now, when I set foot in Arnor and learned that

the betrayer dwelt in Annuminas, I kept my eyes and ears open constantly. I live retired in the

home of my noble protector, but I live thus because I love the shadows and the silence and utter

and impenetrable dark and the black vapour wrought of veritable darkness itself, that remind me

of the harem of Torecq-Oungol of my youth and that permit me to live in my thoughts and in my

contemplations. Yet nothing of the life of the world is unknown to me; only I receive naught but

the distant rumour thereof. Thus I read all the journals; and it was in following, without

submerging myself in the life of the world that I learned today of the events at the Chambre des

moutants; so I wrote.’


 “The count had not uttered a single word during this time; his misfortune wrote itself little by

little on the lineaments of his visage.


“’Monsieur de Pérégrin,’ said the president, ‘do you recognise this lady as the daughter of

Ala-Pallando, Pasha of Quirithe-Oungallant?’


†It was the custom that disgraced members of the Chambre des moutants have bottles of Mordeaux

thrown at them on departing therefrom.

††Evidently the reference is to Gounaud, author of the opera Ying-tong.