No cat could have been more gentle or more silent as I felt its edges.
I leaned over and placed my ear timidly against the outer panel.
There was no sound of breathing.
The products of the house of Strong, Bulbul & Co., of New York, could not be more noiseless in their boxes.
A fear seizes upon me--the fear of seeing all my reporter's hopes vanish.

Was I deceived on board the _Astara_?
That respiration, that sneeze; had I dreamed it all?
Was there no one in the case, not even Zeitung?
Were these really glass goods exported to Miss Zinca Klork, Avenue Cha-Coua, Pekin, China?
No! Feeble as it is, I detect a movement inside the case! It becomes more distinct, and I ask if the panel is going to slide, if the prisoner is coming out of his prison to breathe the fresh air?
What I had better do to see and not to be seen is to hide between two cases.

Thanks to the darkness there is nothing to fear.
Suddenly a slight cracking greets my ear.

I am not the sport of an illusion; it is the crack of a match being lighted.
Almost immediately a few feeble rays pierce the ventilation holes of the case.
If I had had any doubts as to the position held by the prisoner in the scale of being, I have none now.

At the least it must be an ape who knows the use of fire, and also the handling of matches.