“That looks queer!”said the provost.
“Monseigneur!”she cried, still filling the window, and trembling lest suspicion should prompt them to put their heads through and look into the cell; “monseigneur, I swear to you that it was a cart that broke this grating. I swear it by all the holy angels in paradise. If it was not a cart, may I go to everlasting perdition and deny my God!”
“Thou art very urgent in that oath of thine!”said Tristan with his inquisitorial glance.
The poor creature felt her assurance ebbing fast away. She was making blunders, and had a terrible consciousness that she was not saying what she should have said.
Here another soldier came up, crying: “Monseigneur, the old wife lies. The witch cannot have got away by the Rue du Mouton, for the chain was across the street all night, and the watchman saw no one pass.”
“What hast thou to say to that?”asked Tristan, whose countenance grew every moment more forbidding.
She strove to offer a bold front to this fresh incident. “Why, monseigneur, I do not know; I must have made a mistake, I suppose. In fact, now I come to think of it, I believe she crossed the water.”
“That’s at the opposite side of the Place,”said the provost. “And then it’s not very likely that she should want to return to the city where they were making search for her. Thou liest, old woman!”
“Besides,”added the first soldier, “there’s no boat either on this side or the other.”
“She will have swam across then,”said the recluse, fighting her ground inch by inch.
“Do women swim?”said the soldier.
“Tête-Dieu! old woman, thou liest, thou liest!”cried Tristan angrily. “I’ve a good mind to leave the witch and take thee instead. A little quarter of an hour’s question would soon drag the truth out of thy old throat. Come! Thou shalt go along with us!”
She caught eagerly at these words.
“As you will, my lord; do as you say. The question! I am quite ready to submit to it. Carry me with you. Quick! let us go at once!—and meantime,”thought she, “my daughter can escape.”
“Mort-Dieu!”said the provost, “what a thirst for the rack! This crazy old wife’s quite beyond my comprehension.”
A grizzled old sergeant of the watch now stepped out of the ranks and addressed the provost. “Crazy indeed, monseigneur! If she let the gipsy go, tis not her fault, for she has no love for gipsy women. For fifteen years I’ve held the watch here, and every night I hear her calling down curses without end on these Bohemian women. If the one we’re looking for is, as I believe, the little dancer with the goat, she hated her beyond all the rest.”
Gudule gathered up her strength:
“Yes, her beyond all the rest,”she repeated.
The unanimous testimony of the men of the watch confirmed what the old sergeant had said. Tristan l’Hermite, despairing of getting anything out of the recluse, turned his back on her, and, with irrepressible anxiety, she saw him slowly return to his horse.