Emilet laughed.
"At times, my brothers, your ignorance, mechanically speaking, is cra.s.s!... The balloon is the back part of my car, I"d have you know."
The Beard sn.i.g.g.e.red.
"Good!... Pick it up! Now, Beadle!"
The two seized the body of Jules by shoulders and feet, and flung it brutally into the limousine.
A rug, negligently flung over the body of the trussed Jules, hid him from observation.
"Now we"ll embark," announced Emilet.
As a precaution, the young hooligan asked:
"The bloke snores?"
"Yes," replied the Beadle. "He is travelling in No Nightmare Land...."
The Beadle laughed.
But Emilet was alarmed.
"You haven"t snuffed him out, have you?"
"No danger of it! He"s only shamming!"
"Off, then!" said Emilet.
They rolled away at top speed.
The bandits" lair had been well chosen by their chiefs. It was a vast cellar, with a vaulted roof, and earthen walls bedewed with an icy humidity. Axes, mattocks, shovels, rakes, and watering cans lay scattered on the ground: these were worn out tools: they had not served their purpose for many a day.
The lantern, a kind of cresset protected by a wire globe, was suspended from the roof by a string. It shed a faint and wavering light, creating weird shadows in that far-stretching s.p.a.ce, too vast for the insufficient illumination.
Directly beneath the cresset lantern, inside the circle of light it threw upon the ground, a fantastic group of human creatures pressed close to one another, drinking, shouting, chattering, singing.
A clean-shaven man, whose suspicious little eyes were perpetually blinking, turned to a young woman.
"Look here, Ernestine, my beauty, are you certain the Beadle understood that we should be waiting for him here?"
Big Ernestine, who was crouching on the ground and warming her hands at a wood fire, throwing up clouds of smoke, shrugged her shoulders.
"Stop it, do! You say things over and over again, like a clock, Nibet!... Since I"ve told you _yes_--_yes_ it is--there now, and be hanged to you!... You don"t by chance fancy the Beadle has been made a mouthful of, do you?"
Roars of laughter greeted this. Nibet was not one of the inner circle; he was not much of a favourite in the band of Numbers. It is true that they reckoned him a comrade, useful, faithful, that they felt safe with him; but they bore him a grudge because of his regular employment, because of his position, because he was an official.... And, first and last, his warder"s uniform impressed the jail birds unpleasantly.
But Nibet was not the man to allow himself to be intimidated.
"All the same," said he, "I ask where the three of them have got to?...
If they know the mushroom bed, they should have been back long ago!" He shouted to an old woman.
"Eh, Toulouche, tell us the time!"
But Mother Toulouche shook her head.
"I haven"t a watch!"
There was a murmur of protestation. The seven or eight hooligans a.s.sembled there awaiting the return of the Beard and the Beadle, sent with Emilet to kidnap Jules, could not believe that. Mother Toulouche had told the truth.
The Sailor caught the old woman by the shoulders and shook her, and went on shaking her.
"Liar! Aren"t you ashamed to be in a funk with us?... Ever since this blessed Mother Toulouche has sold winkles and many other things, ever since she began to make a little purse for herself, which must be a big purse by now, a purse everyone here has sweated to fill to the brim, she has always distrusted us!... You say you haven"t a watch! I tell you, you"ve got dozens of "em!..."
Big Ernestine interrupted.
"It"s a half-hour over the hour agreed...."
A shudder ran through the a.s.sembly: Nibet, finger on lip, made a sign that they were to listen.
Then, in the mushroom bed, no longer in use, which the band of Numbers had recently adopted as their meeting place, a profound silence fell....
"There they are!" said Nibet.
Big Ernestine leaped up, left the fire, advanced to the far end of the cellar, and imitated the cry of a screech owl to perfection. There was a similar cry in response.
"It"s all right. They"re here!" she said. She returned to the fire and sat down. But Nibet seized the girl and forced her to get up again.
"Go along with you! Quick march!" he said roughly.
She protested. Nibet stopped her.
"Oh, we can"t stand listening to you!... Ho there, Sailor!... Come here!... Sit down on this plank! You, the Beadle, and me--we"re to be the judges.... Beard makes the accusation: and, if her heart tells her to, Ernestine will defend him."
"I"d rather spit at the tell-tale!... You can tear him to bits as far as I"m concerned!" cried the girl. "There"s nothing disgusts me so much as a tell-tale!"
The hooligans crowded round big Ernestine. They applauded her ironically; for they all knew that, once upon a time, she had been strongly suspected of having dealings with, what they called, "The dirty lot at the Bobby"s Nest."
Silence fell once more. They could hear the rasp of the rope unrolling from a hand windla.s.s attached to an enormous bucket. This was the primitive lift.
Moments pa.s.sed. The hooligans had formed a circle beneath the black hole where the bucket moved up and down.
"It goes, old Beard?" questioned Nibet, gazing upwards.
"It goes, old bloke!"