Well," said Ferot, interrupting himself, "where are you going to-- where the devil is she running to now?"
Believing the life of Martial menaced by the inhabitants of the island, La Louve, overcome with alarm, and transported with rage, listened no longer to the fisherman, but ran along the Seine.
Some topographical details are indispensable to understand the following scene.
The island approached nearer the left side of the river than the right sh.o.r.e, from whence Fleur-de-Marie and Mrs. Seraphin had embarked. La Louve was on the left side. Without being very steep, the hills on the island concealed, all its length, the view of one sh.o.r.e from the other. Thus, La Louve had not seen the embarkation of La Goualeusea, and the Martial family, of course, could not see her as she ran along the sh.o.r.e on the opposite side.
We recall to the reader that the country-house belonging to Doctor Griffon, where the Count de Saint Remy temporarily dwelt, was built on the hillside, near the sh.o.r.e where La Louve was wandering, half-distracted.
She pa.s.sed, without seeing them, near two persons, who, struck with her haggard look, turned to follow her at a distance. These two persons were the Count de Saint Remy and Doctor Griffon.
The first impulse of La Louve, on learning the peril of her lover, had been to run impetuously toward the place where she knew he was in danger. But as she approached the island, she thought of the difficulty of getting there. As the old fisherman had told her, she could not count on any strange boat, and no one from the Martial family would come for her.
Breathless, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, she stopped opposite a point of the island which, forming a curve at this place, was nearest to the mainland. Through the leafless branches of the willows and poplars, La Louve could see the roof of the house, where, perhaps, Martial was dying. At this sight, uttering a fearful groan, she tore off her shawl and cap, and slipping down her robe, keeping on her petticoat, she threw herself into the river, and waded until she lost her footing, when she began to swim vigorously toward the island.
It was the climax of savage energy.
At each stroke, the thick and long hair of La Louve, untied by the violence of her movements, shook about her head like a s.h.a.ggy mane of copper color.
Suddenly, from the other side of the island, resounded a cry of distress, of terrible, desperate agony. La Louve shuddered, and stopped short. Then, treading water, with one hand she pushed back her thick hair, and listened. A new cry was heard, but more feeble, more supplicating, convulsive, expiring and all relapsed into a profound silence. "My Martial!" cried La Louve, swimming again with all her strength. She thought she had recognized the voice of Martial.
The count and doctor had not been able to follow La Louve quick enough to prevent what she accomplished. They arrived opposite to the island at the moment that the two fearful screams were heard, and stopped, as much alarmed as La Louve. Seeing her struggle intrepidly against the current, they cried, "The poor thing will be drowned!" These fears were vain; she swam like an otter; still a few more strokes, and she reached the land. She was getting out of the water by the a.s.sistance of the poles, which, as we have said, formed a breakwater at the end of the island, when she perceived the body of a young girl, dressed as a peasant, sustained by her clothes, floating down the current.
To grasp with one hand the poles, and with the other to seize hold of the girl by her dress, such was the movement of La Louve, as rapid as thought. Then she drew her so violently toward her and within the stakes, that, for a moment, she disappeared under the water, which was of no great depth at this place.
Endued with no common strength and address, La Louve raised up La Goualeuse (for it was she), whom she had not yet recognized, took her up in her robust arms, as one would have taken a child, made some steps in the water, and, finally, laid her on the green bank of the island.
"Courage, courage!" cried M. de Saint Remy to her, as a witness, as well as Dr. Griffon, of this bold act. "We are going to cross the bridge, and will come to your aid in a boat." La Louve did not hear these words. Let us repeat, that from the right sh.o.r.e of the Seine, where Nicholas, Calabash, and their mother remained after the consummation of their horrible crime, nothing could be seen of the other side, owing to the height of the island. Fleur-de-Marie, suddenly drawn within the row of piles by La Louve, having plunged for a moment, and not reappearing to the sight of her murderers, they believed their victim drowned and ingulfed.
Some few moments afterward, the current brought down another body, in an eddy, which La Louve did not perceive. It was the corpse of the notary"s housekeeper. Dead--quite dead--this one.
Nicholas and Calabash had as much interest as Jacques Ferrand to get rid of this witness, the accomplice of their new crime; so when the boat with the hole sunk with Fleur-de-Marie, Nicholas, springing into the boat of his sister, nearly upset it, and seizing a favorable moment, threw the housekeeper into the river, and dispatched her with the boat-hook.
Out of breath and exhausted, La Louve, kneeling on the ground alongside of Fleur-de-Marie, recruited her strength, and examined the features of her whom she had rescued from death. Let her surprise be imagined when she recognized her companion of the prison, who had exercised upon her destiny an influence so rapid, so ameliorating. In her surprise, for a moment she forgot Martial.
"La Goualeuse!" cried she.
With bended body, leaning on her hands and knees, her hair disheveled, her clothes dripping with water, she contemplated the unhappy child, extended, almost expiring on the ground. Pale, inanimate, her eyes half open and without expression, her beautiful flaxen hair falling flat over her forehead, her blue lips, her small hands, already stiff and icy--one would have thought her dead. "La Goualeuse!" repeated La Louve, "what chance! I who came to tell my Martial the good and evil she had done me with her words and promises; the resolution that I had taken. Poor little thing! I find her here dead. But, no, no," cried La Louve, approaching still nearer to Fleur-de-Marie, and feeling an almost imperceptible breath escape from her mouth; "No! she breathes still! I have saved her from death! that has never happened to me before, to save any one. Ah! that does me good; it makes me warm. Yes, but my Martial I must save also. Perhaps, at this moment, he is expiring; his mother and brother are capable of killing him. Yet I cannot leave this poor little thing here. I will carry her to the widow"s; she must take care of her, and show me Martial, or I will break everything--I will kill everybody! Oh! neither mother, brother, nor sister do I care for, when I know my Martial is there!"
And immediately getting up, La Louve carried Fleur-de-Marie in her arms. With this light burden she ran toward the house, not doubting but that the widow and her daughter, notwithstanding their wickedness, would lend their a.s.sistance to Fleur-de-Marie.
When she reached the highest part of the island, whence could be seen both sh.o.r.es of the Seine, Nicholas, his mother, and Calabash, were far off, going in all haste to Bras-Rouge"s tavern.
At this moment also, a man, who, concealed in the plaster-kiln, had invisibly a.s.sisted at this horrible tragedy, disappeared, believing, with the murderers, that the crime was executed. This man was Jacques Ferrand. One of Nicholas"s boats was tied to a pile near the place where La Goualeuse and old Seraphin had embarked. Hardly had Jacques Ferrand left the plaster-kiln to return to Paris, than M. de Saint Remy and Dr. Griffon hastily crossed the Bridge of Asnieres, running toward the island, thinking to reach it by Nicholas"s boat, which they had seen from afar.
To her great surprise, on arriving at the house of the Ravageurs, La Louve found the door closed. Placing the still inanimate body of Fleur-de-Marie under the arbor, she drew near the house. She knew the window of Martial"s chamber. What was her surprise, to see the shutters covered with iron plates, and fastened with bars of the same material!
Suspecting partly the truth, La Louve uttered a hoa.r.s.e, resounding cry and began to call with all her strength, "Martial! my love!"
No one answered. Alarmed at this silence, La Louve began to walk around the building like a savage beast who scents his mate, and seeks, with roaring, the entrance of the den where he is confined.
From time to time she cried, "My man--are you there, my man?" In her rage she shook the bars of the kitchen window--she knocked against the wall--she kicked against the door.
All at once a hollow sound answered from the interior of the house. La Louve shuddered--listened. The noise ceased.
"My man has heard me! I must enter, even if I have to gnaw the door with my teeth!" And again she uttered her savage cries.
Several blows, feebly struck on the inside of the window shutters of Martial"s room, answered to her shouts.
"He is there!" cried she, stopping suddenly under her lover"s window, "he is there! If needs must, I will tear off the iron shutters with my nails, but I will open them."
So saying, she saw a large ladder placed behind one of the blinds of the lower rooms; in drawing this blind violently toward her, La Louve caused the key to fall which the widow had concealed on the window bench. "If it unlocks," said La Louve, trying the key in the lock, "I can go up to his chamber. It opens," cried she, with joy; "my friend is saved!"
Once in the kitchen, she was struck by the cries of the children, who shut up in the cellar and hearing an extraordinary noise, called for help.
The widow, believing no one would come to the island or house during her absence, had contented herself with locking Francois and Amandine in the cellar, leaving the key in the lock.
Set at liberty by La Louve, the brother and sister rushed precipitately from the cellar, crying, "Oh, La Louve, save brother Martial! they wish to kill him; two days he has been walled up in his room."
"They have not wounded him?"
"No, no; we believe not."
"I arrive in time!" cried La Louve, rushing to the staircase: then suddenly stopping, she said, "And La Goualeuse! whom I forgot.
Amandine, some fire at once; you and your brother, bring here, near the chimney-place, a poor girl who was drowning. I saved her. She is under the arbor. Francois, a pair of pincers, a hatchet, an iron bar, so that I can break down the door of my Martial!"
"Here is an ax to split wood, but it is too heavy for you," said the young boy.
"Too heavy!" sneered La Louve, and she lifted with ease the iron mace, which, under any other circ.u.mstances, she could hardly have raised from the ground. Then, mounting the stairs four at a time, she repeated to the children, "Run and bring in the girl, and place her near the fire." In two bounds, La Louve was at the bottom of the corridor, at Martial"s door. "Courage, my friend--here is your Louve!"
cried she, and raising the ax with both hands, with a furious blow she shook the door.
"It is nailed on the outside. Draw out the nails," cried Martial, in a feeble voice.
Throwing herself on her knees in the corridor, with the aid of the pincers and of her nails, which she tore, and her fingers, which she cut, La Louve succeeded in drawing out the spikes which fastened the door. At length the door was opened. Martial, pale, his hands covered with blood, fell almost lifeless into the arms of his darling.
"At length I see you! I hold you! I have you!" cried La Louve, receiving Martial in her arms with joy and savage energy; then sustaining him, almost carrying him, she led him to a seat placed in the corridor.
During some moments Martial remained weak and feeble, endeavoring to recover from this violent shock, which had exhausted his failing strength. La Louve saved her lover at the moment when, in a state of despair, he felt himself about to die, less from the want of food than from the deprivation of air, impossible to be renewed in a small room without a chimney, without any aperture, and hermetically closed through the atrocious foresight of Calabash, who had stopped up with old linen even the smallest fissures of the door and window.
Palpitating with happiness and anguish, her eyes wet with tears, La Louve, on her knees, watched the smallest movements of Martial. By degrees he seemed to recover, as he breathed the pure and salubrious air. After a slight shudder, he raised his weary head, uttered a long sigh, and opened his eyes.
"Martial, it is I! your Louve; how do you feel?"
"Better," answered he, in a feeble voice.
"What will you have? water, vinegar?"
"No, no," cried Martial, less and less oppressed. "Air! oh, some air!
nothing but air!"