$ perl -MDevel::Peek -MEncode -we'$x=encode("UTF-8", chr(259)); Dump($x); print $x' | od -b
SV = PV(0x819f9e0) at 0x814cc6c
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (POK,pPOK)
  PV = 0x81698e0 "\304\203"\0   ---.
  CUR = 2                           \__ same
  LEN = 3                           /
0000000 304 203      --------------'
0000002

$ perl -MDevel::Peek -MEncode -we'$x=encode("UTF-8", chr(238)); Dump($x); print $x' | od -b
SV = PV(0x819f9e0) at 0x814cc6c
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (POK,pPOK)
  PV = 0x81698e0 "\303\256"\0   ---.
  CUR = 2                           \__ same
  LEN = 3                           /
0000000 303 256      --------------'
0000002