THE CHOUETTE.
The precipitation of the Chouette's step, the fierce throbbings of a
fever of rapine and murder which still animated her, had suffused her
hideous features with a deep purple, whilst her green eye sparkled with
savage joy. Tortillard followed her, hopping and skipping. At the moment
when she descended the last steps of the stairs, Bras-Rouge's son, from
pure mischief, put his foot on the long and dragging skirts of the
Chouette's gown. This sudden stoppage made the old woman stumble, and,
unable to catch hold of the baluster, she fell on her knees, her two
hands extended, and dropping her precious basket, whence escaped a gold
bracelet set with emeralds and pearls. The Chouette having, in her fall,
somewhat excoriated her fingers, picked up the bracelet, which had not
escaped the keen sight of Tortillard, and, recovering her feet, turned
furiously to the little cripple, who approached her with a hypocritical
air, saying to her:
"Oh, dear me! Did your foot slip?"
Without making any reply, the Chouette seized Tortillard by the hair,
and, stooping to a level with his cheek, she bit it with such fury that
the blood spurted out beneath her teeth. Strange, however, Tortillard,
in spite of his usual vindictiveness, in spite of feeling such intense
pain, did not utter a murmur or a cry. He only wiped his bleeding cheek,
and said, with a forced laugh:
"I hope next time you will not kiss me so hard,--eh, La Chouette?"
"Wicked little brat! Why did you tread on my gown on purpose to make me
fall?"
"Me? Oh! How could you think so? I swear I didn't do it on purpose, my
dear Chouette! Don't think your little Tortillard would do you any harm;
he loves you too well for that. You should never beat him, or scold him,
or bite him, for he is as fond of you as if he were a poor little dog,
and you were his mistress!" said the boy, in a gentle and insinuating
tone.
Deceived by Tortillard's hypocrisy, the Chouette believed him, and
replied:
"Well, well, if I was wrong to bite you, why, let it go for all the
other times you have deserved it, you little villain! But, _vive la
joie_! To-day I bear no malice. Where is your old rogue of a father?"
"In the house. Shall I go and find him for you?"
"No; are the Martials here?"
"Not yet."
"Then I have time to go down and visit _fourline_. I want to speak to
old No-Eyes."
"Will you go into the Schoolmaster's cellar?" inquired Tortillard,
scarcely concealing his diabolical delight.
"What's that to you?"
"To me?"
"Yes, you ask me the question with such an odd air."
"Because I was thinking of something odd."
"What?"
"Why, that you ought, at least, to have brought him a pack of cards to
pass away his time," replied Tortillard, with a cunning look; "that
would divert him a little; now he has nothing to play at but not to be
bitten by the rats; and he always wins at that game, and after awhile it
becomes tiresome."
The Chouette laughed heartily at Tortillard's wit, and said to the
cripple:
"Love of a baby boy to his mammy! I do not know any chap who has more
vice than this scamp. Go and get me a candle, that you may light me down
to see _fourline_, and you can help me to open his door. You know that I
can hardly push it by myself."
"Well, no, it is so very dark in the cellar," said Tortillard, shaking
his head.
"What! What! You who are as wicked as devil to be a coward? I like to
see that, indeed! Go directly, and tell your father that I shall be with
him almost immediately; that I am with _fourline_; and that we are
talking of putting up the banns for our marriage. He, he, he!" added the
disgusting wretch, grinning. "So make haste, and you shall be bridesman,
and, if you are a good boy, you shall have my garter."
Tortillard went, with a sulky air, to fetch a light. Whilst she was
waiting for him, the Chouette, perfectly intoxicated with the success of
her robbery, put her hand into her basket to feel the precious jewels it
enclosed. It was for the purpose of temporarily concealing this treasure
that she desired to descend into the Schoolmaster's cellar, and not,
according to her habit, to enjoy the torments of her new victim.
We will presently explain why, with Bras-Rouge's connivance, the
Chouette had immured the Schoolmaster in the very subterranean cave into
which this miscreant had formerly precipitated Rodolph.
Tortillard, holding a light, now appeared at the door of the cabaret.
The Chouette followed him into the lower room, in which opened the trap
with the folding-doors, with which we are already acquainted.
Bras-Rouge's son, sheltering the light in the hollow of his hand, and
preceding the old woman, slowly descended a stone staircase, which led
to a sharp declivity, at the end of which was the thick door of the
cellar which had so nearly proved Rodolph's grave. When he reached the
bottom of the staircase, Tortillard pretended to hesitate in following
the Chouette.
"Well, now, you little vagabond, go on!" she said.
"Why, it is so dark; and you go so fast, Chouette! And, indeed, I'd
rather go back again, and leave you the light."
"And then, foolish imp, how am I to open the cellar door by myself? Will
you come on?"
"No, I am so frightened!"
"If I begin with you! Mind--"
"If you threaten me, I'll go back again!" and Tortillard retreated
several paces.
"Well, listen to me, now,--be a good boy," said the Chouette, repressing
her anger, "and I'll give you something."
"Well, what?" said Tortillard, coming up to her. "Speak to me so always,
and I'll do anything you wish me, Mother Chouette."
"Come, come, I'm in a hurry!"
"Yes; but promise me that I may have some fun with the Schoolmaster."
"Another time; I haven't time to-day."
"Only a little bit,--just let me tease him for five minutes?"
"Another time; I tell you that I want to return up-stairs as quickly as
possible."
"Why, then, do you want to open the door of his apartment?"
"That's no affair of yours. Come, now, have done with this. Perhaps the
Martials are come by this time, and I must have some talk with them. So
be a good boy, and you sha'n't be sorry for it. Come along."
"I must love you very much, Chouette, for you make me do just what you
like," said Tortillard, slowly advancing.
The dim, wavering light of the candle, which but imperfectly lighted
this gloomy way, reflected the black profile of this hideous brat on the
slimy walls, which were full of crevices and reeking with damp. At the
end of this passage, through the half obscurity, might be seen the low
and crumbling arch of the entrance to the cellar, the thick door
strengthened with iron bars, and, standing out in the shade, the red
shawl and white cap of the Chouette.
By the united exertions of the two, the door opened harshly on its rusty
hinges; a puff of humid vapour escaped from this den, as dark as
midnight. The light, placed on the ground, threw its faint beams on the
first steps of the stone staircase, the bottom of which was completely
lost in the darkness. A cry, or, rather, a savage roar, came from the
depths of the cave.
"Ah, there's _fourline_ wishing his mamma good-morning!" said the
Chouette, with a sneer.
And she descended several steps, in order to conceal her basket in some
hole.
"I'm hungry!" exclaimed the Schoolmaster, in a voice that shook with
rage; "do you wish to kill me like a mad dog?"
"What's the deary lovey hungry?" said the Chouette, with a laugh of
mockery; "then smell its thumb."
There was a sound like that of a chain twisted violently; then a groan
of mute, repressed passion.
"Take care! Take care, or you'll have a bump in your leg, as you had at
Bouqueval farm, poor dear pa!" said Tortillard.
"He's right, the boy is,--keep yourself quiet, _fourline_," continued
the hag; "the ring and chain are solid, old No-Eyes, for they came from
Father Micou's, and he sells nothing but the best goods. It is your
fault, too; why did you allow yourself to be bound whilst you were
asleep? We only had then to put the ring and chain in this place, and
bring you down here in the cool to preserve you, old darling."
"That's a pity! He'll grow mouldy," said Tortillard.
Again the clank of the chain was heard.
"He, he, _fourline_! Why, he's dancing like a cockchafer tied by the
claw," said the beldame, "I think I see him!"
"Cockchafer, cockchafer, fly away home! Fly, fly, fly! Your husband is
the Schoolmaster!" sung Tortillard.
This increased the Chouette's hilarity. Having deposited her basket in a
hole formed by the lowering of the wall of the staircase, she stood
erect, and said:
"You see, _fourline_--"
"He don't see," said Tortillard.
"The brat's right. Will you hear, _fourline_? There was no occasion,
when we came away from the farm, to be such a booby as to turn
compassionate, and prevent me from marking Pegriotte's face with my
vitriol; and then, too, you talked of your conscience, which was getting
troubled. I saw you were growing lily-livered, and meant to come the
'honest dodge;' and so, some of these odd-come-shortlies, you would have
turned 'nose' (informer), and have 'made a meal' of us, old No-Eyes; and
then--"
"Then old No-Eyes will make a meal of you, for he is hungry, Chouette,"
said Tortillard, suddenly, and with all his strength pushing the old
woman by her back.
The Chouette fell forward with a horrible imprecation. She might have
been distinctly heard as she rolled from the top to the bottom of the
staircase.
"Bump, bump, bump, bump! There's the Chouette for you--there she is! Why
don't you jump upon her, old buffer?" added Tortillard.
Then, seizing the basket from under the stone where he had seen the old
woman place it, he scampered up the stairs, exclaiming, with a shout of
savage joy:
"Here's a pull worth more than that you had before,--eh, Chouette? This
time you won't bite me till the blood comes,--eh? Ah, you thought I bore
no spite--much obliged--my cheek bleeds still!"
"Oh, I have her! I have her!" cried the Schoolmaster, from the depth of
the cave.
"If you have her, old lad, I cry snacks," said Tortillard, with a laugh.
And he stopped on the top step of the stairs.
"Help!" shrieked the Chouette, in a strangling voice.
"Thanks, Tortillard!" said the Schoolmaster, "thanks. And, to reward
you, you shall hear the night-bird (Chouette) shriek! Listen,
boy,--listen to the bird of death!"
"Bravo! Here I am in the dress-boxes!" said Tortillard, seating himself
on the top of the stairs.
As he said this, he raised the light to endeavour to see the fearful
scene which was going on in the depths of the cavern; but the darkness
was too thick, so faint a light could not disperse it: Bras-Rouge's son
could not see anything. The struggle with the Schoolmaster and the
Chouette was mute, deadly, without a word, without a cry; only from time
to time was heard the hard breathing, or the stifled groan, which always
accompanies violent and desperate efforts. Tortillard, seated on the
step, began to stamp his feet with that cadence peculiar to an audience
impatient to see the beginning of a play; then he uttered the cry so
familiar to the frequenters of the gallery of the minor theatres:
"Music! Music! Play up! Up with the curtain!"
"Oh, now I have hold of you, as I desired," murmured the Schoolmaster,
from the recess of the cellar; "and you were going--"
A desperate movement of the Chouette interrupted him; she struggled with
all the energy which the fear of death inspires.
"Louder! Can't hear!" bawled Tortillard.
"It is in vain you try to gnaw my hand, I will hold you as I like," said
the Schoolmaster. Then, having, no doubt, succeeded in keeping the
Chouette down, he added, "That's it! Now listen--"
"Tortillard, call your father!" shrieked the Chouette, with a faltering,
exhausted voice. "Help! Help!"
"Turn her out, the old thing! She won't let us hear," said the little
cripple, with a shout of laughter; "put her out!"
The Chouette's cries were not audible from this cavern, low as it was.
The wretched creature, seeing that there was no chance of help from
Bras-Rouge's son, resolved to try a last effort.
"Tortillard, go and fetch help, and I will give you my basket; it is
full of jewels. There it is, under a stone."
"How generous! Thank ye, madame. Why, haven't I got it already? Hark!
Don't you hear how it rattles?" said Tortillard, shaking it. "But now,
if you'll give us half a pound of gingerbread nuts, I'll go and fetch
pa."
"Have pity on me, and I will--"
The Chouette was unable to conclude. Again there was a profound silence.
The little cripple again began to beat time on the stone staircase on
which he was seated, accompanying the noise of his feet with the
repeated cry:
"Why don't you begin? Up with the curtain! Music! Music!"
"In this way, Chouette, you can no longer disturb me with your cries,"
said the Schoolmaster, after a few minutes, during which he had, no
doubt, gagged the old woman. "You know very well," he continued, in a
slow, hollow voice, "that I do not wish to end this all at once; torture
for torture! You have made me suffer enough, and I must speak at length
to you before I kill you,--yes, at length. It will be very terrible for
you, agonising!"
"Come, no stuff and nonsense, old parson," said Tortillard, raising
himself half up from his seat; "punish her, but don't do her any harm.
You say you'll kill her,--that's only a hum; I am very fond of my
Chouette; I have only lent her to you, and you must give her back again.
Don't spoil her,--I won't have my Chouette spoiled,--if you do, I'll go
and fetch pa!"
"Be quiet, and she shall only have what she deserves, a profitable
lesson," said the Schoolmaster, in order to assure Tortillard, and for
fear the cripple should go and fetch assistance.
"All right! Bravo! Now the play's going to begin!" said Bras-Rouge's
son, who did not seriously believe that the Schoolmaster intended to
kill the Chouette.
"Let us discourse a little, Chouette," continued the Schoolmaster, in a
calm voice. "In the first place, you see, since that dream at the
Bouqueval farm, which brought all my crimes before my eyes, since that
dream, which did all but drive me mad,--which will drive me mad, for, in
my solitude, in the deep isolation in which I live, all my thoughts
dwell on this dream, in spite of myself,--a strange change has come over
me; yes, I have a horror of my past ferocity. In the first place, I
would not allow you to make a martyr of La Goualeuse, though that was
nothing. Chaining me here in the cellar, making me suffer from cold and
hunger, and detaining me for your wicked suggestions, you have left me
to all the fear of my own reflections. Oh, you do not know what it is to
be left alone,--always alone,--with a dark veil over your eyes, as the
pitiless man said who punished me. Oh, it is horrid! It was in this very
cavern that I flung him, in order to kill him; and this cavern is the
place of my punishment, it may be my grave. I repeat that this is
horrid! All that that man predicted to me has come to pass; he said to
me, 'You have abused your strength,--you will be the plaything, the
sport of the most weak.' And it has been so. He said to me,
'Henceforward separated from the exterior world, face to face with the
eternal remembrance of your crimes, one day you will repent those
crimes.' And that day has come; the loneliness has purified me; I could
not have believed it possible. Another proof that I am perhaps less
wicked than formerly, is that I feel inexpressible joy in holding you
here, monster! Not to avenge myself, but to avenge your victims,--yes, I
shall have accomplished a duty when, with my own hands, I shall have
punished my accomplice. A voice says to me, that, if you had fallen into
my power earlier, much blood, much blood would have been spared. I have
now a horror of my past murders; and yet, is it not strange? It is
without fear, it is even with security, that I am now about to
perpetrate on you a fearful murder, with most fearful refinements. Say,
say! Do you understand that?"
"Bravo! Well played, old No-Eyes! He gets on," exclaimed Tortillard,
applauding. "It is really something to laugh at."
"To laugh at?" continued the Schoolmaster, in a hollow voice. "Keep
still, Chouette; I must complete my explanation as to how I gradually
came to repentance. This revelation will be hateful to you, heart of
stone, and will prove to you also how remorseless I ought to be in the
vengeance which I should wreak on you in the name of our victims. I must
be quick. My delight at grasping you thus makes my blood throb in my
veins,--my temples beat with violence, just as when, by thinking of my
dream, my reason wanders. Perhaps one of my crises will come on; but I
shall have time to make the approaches of death frightful to you by
compelling you to hear me."
"At him, Chouette!" cried Tortillard. "At him! And reply boldly! Why,
you don't know your part. Tell the 'old one' to prompt you, my worthy
elderly damsel."
"It is useless for you to struggle and bite me," said the Schoolmaster,
after another pause. "You shall not escape me,--you have bitten my
fingers to the bone; but I will pull your tongue out, if you stir. Let
us continue our discourse. When I have been alone--alone in the night
and silence--I have begun to experience fits of furious, impotent rage;
and, for the first time, my senses wandered. Oh! though I was awake, I
again dreamed the dream--you know--the dream. The little old man in the
Rue du Roule, the drowned woman, the cattle-dealer, and you--soaring
over these phantoms! I tell you it was horrible! I am blind, and my
thoughts assume a form, a body, in order to represent to me incessantly,
and in a visible, palpable manner, the features of my victims. I should
not have dreamed this fearful vision, had not my mind, continually
absorbed by the remembrance of my past crimes, been troubled with the
same fantasies. Unquestionably, when one is deprived of sight, the ideas
that beset us form themselves into images in the brain. Yet sometimes,
by dint of viewing them with resigned terror, it would appear that these
menacing spectres have pity on me,--they grow dim--fade away--vanish.
Then I feel myself awakened from my horrid dream, but so weak--cast
down--prostrated--that--would you believe it? ah, how you will laugh,
Chouette!--that I weep! Do you hear? I weep! You don't laugh? Laugh!
Laugh! Laugh, I say!"
The Chouette gave a dull and stifled groan.
"Louder," said Tortillard; "can't hear."
"Yes," continued the Schoolmaster, "I weep, for I suffer and rage in
vain. I say to myself, 'To-morrow, next day, for ever, I shall be a prey
to the same attacks of delirium and gloomy desolation. 'What a life! Oh,
what a life! And I would not choose death rather than be buried alive
in this abyss which incessantly pervades my thoughts! Blind, alone, and
a prisoner,--what can relieve me from my remorse? Nothing, nothing! When
the fantasies disappear for a moment, and do not pass and repass the
black veil constantly before my eyes, there are other tortures,--other
overwhelming reflections. I say to myself, 'If I had remained an honest
man, I should be at this moment free, tranquil, happy, beloved, and
honoured by my connections, instead of being blind and chained in this
dungeon at the mercy of my accomplices.' Alas! the regret of happiness
lost from crime is the first step towards repentance; and when to
repentance is joined an expiation of fearful severity,--an expiation
which changes life into a long, sleepless night, filled with avenging
hallucinations or despairing reflections,--perhaps then man's pardon
succeeds to remorse and expiation."
"I say, old chap," exclaimed Tortillard, "you are borrowing a bit from
M. Moissard's part! Come, no cribbing--gammon!"
The Schoolmaster did not hear Bras-Rouge's son.
"You are astonished to hear me speak thus, Chouette? If I had continued
to imbrue myself either in bloody crimes or the fierce drunkenness of
the life of the galleys, this salutary change would never have come over
me I know full well. But alone, blind, stung with remorse, which eats
into me, of what else could I think? Of new crimes,--how to commit them?
Escape,--how to escape? And, if I escaped, whither should I go? What
should I do with my liberty? No; I must henceforth live in eternal
night, between the anguish of repentance and the fear of formidable
apparitions which pursue me. Sometimes, however, a faint ray of hope
comes to lighten the depth of my darkness, a moment of calm succeeds to
my torments,--yes, for sometimes I am able to drive away the spectres
which beset me by opposing to them the recollections of an honest and
peaceable past, by ascending in thought to my youthful days, to my hours
of infancy. Happily, the greatest wretches have, at least, some years of
peace and innocence to oppose to their criminal and blood-stained years.
None are born wicked; the most infamous have had the lovely candour of
infancy,--have tasted the sweet joys of that delightful age. And thus, I
again say, I sometimes find a bitter consolation in saying to myself, 'I
am, at this hour, doomed to universal execration, but there was a time
when I was beloved, protected, because I was inoffensive and good. Alas!
I must, indeed, take refuge in the past, when I can, for it is there
only that I can find calm.'"
As he uttered these last words, the tones of the Schoolmaster lost their
harshness; this man of iron appeared deeply moved, and he added:
"But now the salutary influence of these thoughts is such that my fury
is appeased; courage, power will fail me to punish you. No, it is not I
who will shed your blood."
"Well said, old buck! So, you see, Chouette, it was only a lark," cried
Tortillard, applauding.
"No, it is not I who will shed your blood," continued the Schoolmaster;
"it would be a murder, excusable perhaps, but still a murder; and I have
enough with three spectres; and then--who knows?--perhaps one day you
will repent also?"
And, as he spake thus, the Schoolmaster had mechanically given the
Chouette some liberty of movement. She took advantage of it to seize the
stiletto which she had thrust into her stays after Sarah's murder, and
aimed a violent blow with this weapon at the ruffian, in order to
disengage herself from him. He uttered a cry of extreme pain.
The ferocity of his hatred, his vengeance, his rage, his bloody
instincts, suddenly aroused and exasperated by this attack, now all
burst forth suddenly, terribly, and carried with it his reason, already
so strongly shaken by so many shocks.
"Ah, viper, I feel your teeth!" he exclaimed in a voice that shook with
passion, and seizing, with all his might, the Chouette, who had thought
thus to escape him. "You are in this dungeon, then?" he added, with an
air of madness. "But I will crush the viper or screech-owl. No doubt you
were waiting for the coming of the phantoms. Yes; for the blood beats in
my temples,--? my ears ring,--my head turns--as when they are about to
appear! Yes; I was not deceived; here they are,--they advance from the
depths of darkness,--they advance! How pale they are; and their blood,
how it flows,--red and smoking! It frightens you,--you struggle. Well,
be still, you shall not see the phantoms,--no, you shall not see them. I
have pity on you; I will make you blind. You shall be, like
me,--eyeless!"
Here the Schoolmaster paused. The Chouette uttered a cry so horrible
that Tortillard, alarmed, bounded off the step, and stood up. The horrid
shrieks of the Chouette served to place the copestone on the fury of the
Schoolmaster.
"Sing," he said, in a low voice, "sing, Chouette,--night-bird! Sing your
song of death! You are happy; you do not see three phantoms of those we
have assassinated,--the little old man in the Rue du Roule, the drowned
woman, the cattle-dealer. I see them; they approach; they touch me. Ah,
so cold,--so cold! Ah!"
The last gleam of sense of this unhappy wretch was lost in this cry of
condemnation. He could no longer reason, but acted and roared like a
wild beast, and only obeyed the savage instinct of destruction for
destruction. A hurried trampling was now heard, interrupted frequently
at intervals with a heavy sound, which appeared like a box of bones
bounding against a stone, upon which it was intended to be broken.
Sharp, convulsive shrieks, and a burst of hellish laughter accompanied
each of these blows. Then there was a gasp of agony. Then--nothing.
Suddenly a distant noise of steps and voices reached the depths of the
subterranean vault. Tortillard, frozen with terror by the fearful scene
at which he had been present without seeing it, perceived several
persons holding lights, who descended the staircase rapidly. In a moment
the cave was full of agents of safety, led by Narcisse Borel. The
Municipal Guards followed. Tortillard was seized on the first steps of
the cellar, with the Chouette's basket still in his hand.
Narcisse Borel, with some of his men, descended into the Schoolmaster's
cavern. They all paused, struck by the appalling sight. Chained by the
leg to an enormous stone placed in the middle of the cave, the
Schoolmaster, with his hair on end, his long beard, foaming mouth, was
moving like a wild beast about his den, drawing after him by the two
legs the dead carcase of the Chouette, whose head was horribly
fractured. It required desperate exertions to snatch her from his grasp
and manacle him. After a determined resistance they at length conveyed
him into the low parlour of the cabaret, a large dark room, lighted by a
solitary window. There, handcuffed and guarded, were Barbillon, Nicholas
Martial, his mother and sister. They had been apprehended at the very
moment when laying violent hands on the jewel-matcher to cut her throat.
She was recovering herself in another room. Stretched on the ground, and
hardly restrained by two men, the Schoolmaster, slightly wounded, but
quite deranged, was roaring like a wild bull.
Barbillon, with his head hanging down, his face ghastly, lead-coloured,
his lips colourless, eye fixed and savage, his long and straight hair
falling on the collar of his blouse, torn in the struggle, was seated
on a bench, his wrists, enclosed in handcuffs, resting on his knees. The
juvenile appearance of this fellow (he was scarcely eighteen years of
age), the regularity of his beardless features, already emaciated and
withered, were rendered still more deplorable by the hideous stamp which
debauchery and crime had imprinted on his physiognomy. Impassive, he did
not say a word. It could not be determined whether this apparent
insensibility was owing to stupor or to a calm energy; his breathing was
rapid, and, at times, he wiped away the perspiration from his pale brow
with his fettered hands.
By his side was Calabash, whose cap had been torn off, and her yellowish
hair, tied behind with a piece of tape, hung down in several scanty and
tangled meshes. More savage than subdued, her thin and bilious cheeks
were somewhat suffused, as she looked disdainfully at her brother,
Nicholas, who was in a chair in front of her. Anticipating the fate that
awaited him, this scoundrel was dejected. With drooping head and
trembling knees he was overcome with fright; his teeth chattered
convulsively, and he heaved heavy groans.
The Mother Martial, the only one unmoved, exhibited every proof that she
had lost nothing of her accustomed audacity. With head erect, she looked
unshrinkingly around her. However, at the sight of Bras-Rouge,--whom
they brought into the low room, after having made him accompany the
commissary and his clerk in the minute search they had made all over the
place,--the widow's features contracted, in spite of herself, and her
small and usually dull eyes lighted up like those of an infuriated
viper; her pinched-up lips became livid, and she twisted her manacled
arms. Then, as if sorry she had made this mute display of impotent rage,
she subdued her emotion, and became cold and calm again.
Whilst the commissary and his clerk were writing their depositions,
Narcisse Borel, rubbing his hands, cast a satisfied look on the
important capture he had made, and which freed Paris from a band of
dangerous criminals; but, confessing to himself how useful Bras-Rouge
had really been in the affair, he could not help casting on him an
expressive and grateful look.
Tortillard's father was to share until after trial the confinement and
lot of those he had informed against, and, like them, he was handcuffed;
and even more than them did he assume a trembling air of consternation,
twisting his weasel's features with all his might, in order to give them
a despairing expression, and heaving tremendous sighs. He embraced
Tortillard, as if he should find some consolation in his paternal
caresses.
The little cripple did not seem much moved by these marks of tenderness;
he had just learned that, for a time, he would be moved off to the
prison for young offenders.
"What a misery to have a dear child!" cried Bras-Rouge, pretending to be
greatly affected. "It is we two who are most unfortunate, madame, for we
shall be separated from our children."
The widow could no longer preserve her calmness; and having no doubt of
Bras-Rouge's treachery, which she had foretold, she exclaimed:
"I was sure it was you who had sold my son at Toulon. There, Judas!" and
she spat in his face. "You sell our heads! Well, they shall see the
right sort of deaths,--deaths of true Martials!"
"Yes; we shan't shrink before the carline (guillotine)," added Calabash,
with savage excitement.
The widow, glancing towards Nicholas, said to her daughter, with an air
of unutterable contempt:
"That coward there will dishonour us on the scaffold!"
Some minutes afterwards the widow and Calabash, accompanied by two
policemen, got into a hackney-coach to go to St. Lazare; Barbillon,
Nicholas, and Bras Rouge were conveyed to La Force, whilst the
Schoolmaster was conveyed to the Conciergerie, where there are cells for
the reception of lunatics.
END OF VOLUME IV.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
This e-text was prepared from numbered edition 505 of the 1000 printed.
Minor punctuation and capitalization corrections have been made without
comment.
Minor typographical errors of single words, otherwise spelled correctly
throughout the text have been made without comment.
p. 87, "that'll" to "that" (that I'll slash your eyes out;)
p. 188, "caligraphy" to "calligraphy" (expert in calligraphy)
Word Variations appearing in the original text which have been retained:
"Bras Rouge" (10) and "Bras-Rouge" (49)
"Halloa" (3) and "Holloa" (3) and "Holla" (1)
"Ile du Ravageur" (2) and "Isle du Ravageur" (13)
"rencontre" (1) and "rencounter" (1)
"work-people" (1) and "workpeople" (1)
Words using the [oe] ligature, which have been here represented as "oe":
"manoeuvre".
Throughout the text, illustrations and their captions were placed on
facing pages. For the purpose of this e-text these pages have been
combined into one entry.
Footnotes, originally at the bottom of a printed page, have been placed
directly below the paragraph in which their anchor symbol appears.