Francois had perfectly understood the gesture of his mother; he jumped up quickly, and with one bound was out of his mother"s reach.
"You want mother to beat you soundly?" cried Calabash, "do you?"
The widow, holding the rod in her hand, bit her lips, and looked at Francois with a steady eye, without p.r.o.nouncing a word. From the slight agitation of Amandine"s hands, who sat with her head down, while her neck was suffused with red, it could be seen that the child, although accustomed to such scenes, was alarmed at the fate which awaited her brother, who, having taken refuge in a corner of the kitchen, seemed alarmed and yet rebellious.
"Take care of yourself; mother will get up, and then it will be too late," said Calabash.
"All the same to me," answered Francois, turning pale. "I prefer to be beaten, as I was yesterday, to going to the wood-pile at night."
"And why?" said Calabash, impatiently.
"I am afraid of the wood-pile!" answered Francois, shuddering in spite of himself.
"You are afraid, fool! of what?"
Francois hung his head without answering.
"Will you speak? What are you afraid of?"
"I don"t know; but I"m afraid."
"You have been there a hundred times, and even last night?"
"I don"t want to go there any more."
"There"s mother; she"s getting up."
"So much the worse for me," cried the child. "Let her beat me; let her kill me; but I will not go to the wood-pile--at night, above all."
"But, once more, I ask you, why not?" said Calabash.
"Well, because there"s some one--"
"Some one?"
"Buried there," murmured the trembling boy.
The widow, notwithstanding her impa.s.sibility, could not repress a slight shudder; her daughter imitated her; one would have said that the two had received an electric shock.
"Some one buried in the wood-house!" said Calabash, shrugging her shoulders.
"Yes," said Francois, in a voice so low that he could hardly be heard.
"Liar!" cried Calabash.
"I tell you that not long ago, while piling the wood, I saw, in a dark corner of the wood-house, a dead man"s bone; it stuck out of the ground, which was damp round about," replied Francois.
"Do you hear him, mother? Is he not a fool?" said Calabash, making a significant sign to the widow. "They are some mutton bones I threw there."
"It was not a mutton bone," answered the child; "it was bones buried-- dead men"s bones: a foot which stuck out of the ground. I saw it."
"And you instantly told this to your brother, your good friend Martial--did you not?" said Calabash. Francois did not answer.
"Wicked little spy!" cried Calabash, furiously. "Because he is as cowardly as a cow, he will get us guillotined, as father was."
"Since you call me a spy," cried Francois, exasperated, "I shall tell everything to Martial. I have not told him yet, for I have not seen him since; but when he returns to-night, I--"
The child dared not finish, for his mother advanced toward him, calm but inexorable. Although she habitually held herself much bent over, her size was very large for a woman. Holding the switch in one hand, with the other the widow took her son by the arm, and, in spite of the alarm, resistance, prayers, and tears of the child, dragging him after her, she compelled him to mount the stairs. In a moment was heard the sound of heavy blows, mingled with cries and sobs. When this noise ceased, a door was shut violently, and the widow descended. She placed the whip in its place, seated herself alongside of the fire, and resumed her work without saying a word.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PIRATES.
After a few moments" silence, the widow said to her daughter, "Go and get some wood; we will arrange the woodhouse to-night, on the return of Nicholas and Martial."
"Martial! Will you also tell him that?"
"Some wood," repeated the widow, interrupting her daughter.
She, accustomed to this iron will, lighted a lantern and went out. At the moment she opened the door it could be seen that the night was very dark, and one could hear the whistling of the wind through the poplars, the clanging of the chains which held the boats, and the wash of the river. These noises were profoundly sad.
During the preceding scene, Amandine, painfully affected at the fate of Francois, whom she loved tenderly, had dared neither to raise her eyes nor wipe her tears, which fell drop by drop obscuring her sight.
In her haste to finish the work which was given her, she had wounded her hand with the scissors; the blood flowed freely, but the poor child thought less of the pain than the punishment which she might expect for having stained the linen with her blood. Happily, the widow, absorbed in profound thought, perceived nothing. Calabash returned bringing a basket filled with wood. At a look from her mother, she answered by a nod, intended to say that the dead man"s foot did appear above the earth.
The widow bit her lip and continued to work, but she appeared to handle the needle more quickly. Calabash replenished the fire, and resumed her seat alongside of her mother.
"Nicholas does not come," said she. "I hope the old woman who was here this morning, in giving him a rendezvous with Bradamanti, has not got him into some bad sc.r.a.pe. She had such a queer air; she would not explain or tell her name, or where she came from." The widow shrugged her shoulders.
"You think there is no danger for Nicholas, mother? After all, perhaps, you are right. The old woman said he must be on the Quai de Billy at seven in the evening, opposite the dock, where he would find a man who wished to speak to him, and who would say "Bradamanti" for pa.s.sword. Really, that does not seem so very dangerous. If Nicholas is late, it is, perhaps, because he has found something on the way, as he did yesterday--this linen, boned from a washing-boat;" and she showed one of the pieces of linen which Amandine was unmarking; then, speaking to the child, she said, "What does boning mean?"
"This means to take," answered the child, without raising her eyes.
"It means to steal, little fool; do you hear, to steal?"
"Yes, sister."
"And when one knows how to bone like Nicholas there is always something to gain. The linen he picked up yesterday has only cost us the trouble of picking out the marks--eh, mother?" said Calabash, with a burst of laughter which displayed her decayed teeth, as yellow as her skin. The widow did not laugh.
"_Apropos_ of getting things gratis," continued Calabash, "we can, perhaps, furnish ourselves from another shop. You know that an old man, two or three days since, came to live in the country-house of M. Griffion, the physician of the Paris Hospital--the lonely house a few steps from the river, opposite the plaster quarry?" The widow bowed her head.
"Nicholas said yesterday that now there was, perhaps, a good job to be done there. And I know, since this morning, that there is some booty there for certain. I must send Amandine to wander around the house; they will pay no attention to her; she will pretend to be playing, will look well about her, and then come and let us know what she has seen. Do you hear what I say?"
"Yes, sister, I will go," answered the trembling child.