"
"I promise," said I. "But I should like to ask you one question. What
do you conceive to have been the cause of the extraordinary shock you
felt and of the havoc you witnessed? What, in short, the nature of the
occurrence and the origin of the manuscript you entrust to my care?"
"Why need you ask me?" he returned. "You are as capable as myself of
drawing a deduction from what I have told you, and I have told you
everything, I believe, that could assist you. The manuscript will tell
the rest."
"But," said I, "an actual eye-witness often receives from a number of
little facts which he cannot remember, which are perhaps too minute to
have been actually and individually noted by him, an impression which
is more likely to be correct than any that could be formed by a
stranger on the fullest cross-questioning, on the closest examination
of what remains in the witness's memory. I should like to hear, before
opening the manuscript, what you believe to have been its origin.
"I can only say," he answered, "that what must be inferred from the
manuscript is what I had inferred before I opened it.
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