It was not, Heaven help us all! a very uncommon occurrence these days: a
woman almost unsexed by misery, starvation, and the abnormal excitement
engendered by daily spectacles of revenge and of cruelty. They were to
be met with every day, round every street corner, these harridans, more
terrible far than were the men.
This one was still comparatively young, thirty at most; would have been
good-looking too, for the features were really delicate, the nose
chiselled, the brow straight, the chin round and small. But the mouth!
Heavens, what a mouth! Hard and cruel and thin-lipped; and those eyes!
sunken and rimmed with purple; eyes that told tales of sorrow and, yes!
of degradation. The crowd stood round her, sullen and apathetic; poor,
miserable wretches like herself, staring at her antics with lack-lustre
eyes and an ever-recurrent contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
The woman was dancing, contorting her body in the small circle of light
formed by a flickering lanthorn which was hung across the street from
house to house, striking the muddy pavement with her shoeless feet, all
to the sound of a be-ribboned tambourine which she struck now and again
with her small, grimy hand. From time to time she paused, held out the
tambourine at arm's length, and went the round of the spectators, asking
for alms. But at her approach the crowd at once seemed to disintegrate,
to melt into the humid evening air; it was but rarely that a greasy
token fell into the outstretched tambourine. Then as the woman started
again to dance the crowd gradually reassembled, and stood, hands in
pockets, lips still sullen and contemptuous, but eyes watchful of the
spectacle. There were such few spectacles these days, other than the
monotonous processions of tumbrils with their load of aristocrats for
the guillotine!
So the crowd watched, and the woman danced. The lanthorn overhead threw
a weird light on red caps and tricolour cockades, on the sullen faces of
the men and the shoulders of the women, on the dancer's weird antics and
her flying, tattered skirts. She was obviously tired, as a poor,
performing cur might be, or a bear prodded along to uncongenial
buffoonery. Every time that she paused and solicited alms with her
tambourine the crowd dispersed, and some of them laughed because she
insisted.
"Voyons," she said with a weird attempt at gaiety, "a couple of sous for
the entertainment, citizen! You have stood here half an hour. You can't
have it all for nothing, what?"
The man--young, square-shouldered, thick-lipped, with the look of a
bully about his well-clad person--retorted with a coarse insult, which
the woman resented. There were high words; the crowd for the most part
ranged itself on the side of the bully. The woman backed against the
wall nearest to her, held feeble, emaciated hands up to her ears in a
vain endeavour to shut out the hideous jeers and ribald jokes which were
the natural weapons of this untamed crowd.
Soon blows began to rain; not a few fell upon the unfortunate woman. She
screamed, and the more she screamed the louder did the crowd jeer, the
uglier became its temper. Then suddenly it was all over. How it happened
the woman could not tell. She had closed her eyes, feeling sick and
dizzy; but she had heard a loud call, words spoken in English (a
language which she understood), a pleasant laugh, and a brief but
violent scuffle. After that the hurrying retreat of many feet, the click
of sabots on the uneven pavement and patter of shoeless feet, and then
silence.
She had fallen on her knees and was cowering against the wall, had lost
consciousness probably for a minute or two. Then she heard that pleasant
laugh again and the soft drawl of the English tongue.
"I love to see those beggars scuttling off, like so many rats to their
burrows, don't you, Ffoulkes?"
"They didn't put up much fight, the cowards!" came from another voice,
also in English. "A dozen of them against this wretched woman. What had
best be done with her?"
"I'll see to her," rejoined the first speaker. "You and Tony had best
find the others. Tell them I shall be round directly."
It all seemed like a dream. The woman dared not open her eyes lest
reality--hideous and brutal--once more confronted her. Then all at once
she felt that her poor, weak body, encircled by strong arms, was lifted
off the ground, and that she was being carried down the street, away
from the light projected by the lanthorn overhead, into the sheltering
darkness of a yawning porte cochere. But she was not then fully
conscious.