Since the moment when Tristan had seen her daughter, and all hope was lost, the recluse had not uttered a word. She had thrown the poor girl, half dead, into a corner of the cell and resumed her post at the window, her two hands spread on the stone sill like two talons. In this attitude she faced the soldiers unflinchingly with a gaze that was once more savage and distraught. As Henriet Cousin approached the cell, she fixed him with such a wild beast glare that he shrank back.
“Monseigneur,”said he, turning back to the provost, “which must I take?”
“The young one.”
“So much the better; the old one seems none too easy.”
“Poor little dancer!”said the sergeant of the watch.
Henriet Cousin advanced once more to the window. The mother’s eye made his own droop.
“Madame,”he began timidly—
She interrupted him in a whisper of concentrated fury:
“What wilt thou?”
“It is not you,”he said, “but the other one.”
“What other one?”
“The young one.”
She shook her head violently. “There is nobody! nobody! nobody!”she cried.
“Yes, there is!”returned the hangman, “as you very well know. Let me take the girl. I mean no harm to you.”
“Ah! ha!”she said, with a wild laugh; “you mean no harm to me?”
“Let me take the other, good wife; ’tis the provost’s orders.”
“There is nobody else,”she repeated distractedly.
“But I tell you there is!”retorted the hangman. “We all saw the two of you.”
“Thou hadst best look, then,”said the recluse with a mad chuckle. “Thrust thy head through the window.”
The hangman considered the nails of the mother, and dared not.
“Haste thee now!”cried Tristan, who had drawn up his men in a circle round the Rat-Hole, and stationed himself on horseback near the gibbet.
Henriet returned to the provost in perplexity. He laid the coil of rope on the ground, and was twisting his cap nervously in his hands.
“Monseigneur,”he asked, “how must I get in?”
“By the door.”
“There is none.”