"They have not wounded him, have they?"
"No, no, I think not!"
"I have arrived just in time, it seems," cried La Louve, rushing towards the staircase, and hastily mounting the stairs. Then, suddenly stopping, she exclaimed, "Ah, but La Goualeuse! I quite forgot her. Amandine, my child, light a fire directly; and then do you and your brother fetch a poor, half-drowned girl you will find lying outside the door under the porch, and place her before the fire. She would have been quite dead, if I had not saved her. Francois, quick! Bring me a crowbar, a hatchet, an axe, anything, that I may break in the door that confines my man!"
"There is the cleaver we split wood with, but it is too heavy for you,"
said the lad, dragging forward an enormous chopper.
"Too heavy! I don"t even feel it!" cried La Louve, swinging the ponderous weapon, which, at another time, she would have had much difficulty in lifting, as though it had been a feather.
Then, proceeding with hurried steps up-stairs, she called out to the children:
"Go and fetch the young girl I told you of, and place her by the fire."
And, with two bounds, La Louve reached the corridor, at the end of which was situated the apartment of Martial.
"Courage! Courage, my man! Your Louve is here!" cried she, and, lifting the cleaver with both hands, she dashed it furiously against the door.
"It is fastened on the outside," moaned Martial, in a feeble voice; "draw out the nails,--you cannot open it otherwise."
Throwing herself upon her knees in the pa.s.sage, by the help of the edge of the cleaver, her nails, which she almost tore bleeding from their roots, and her fingers, which were lacerated and torn, La Louve contrived to extract the huge nails which fastened the door all around.
At length her heroic exertions were crowned with success,--the door yielded to her efforts, and Martial, pale, bleeding, and almost exhausted, fell into the arms of his mistress.
"At last--I have you--I hold you--I press you to my heart!" exclaimed La Louve, as she received and tenderly pressed Martial in her arms, with a joy of possession that partook almost of savage energy. She supported, or, rather, carried him to a bench placed in the corridor. For several minutes Martial remained weak and haggard, endeavouring to recover from the violent surprise which had proved nearly too much for his exhausted strength. La Louve had come to the succour of her lover at the very instant when, worn-out and despairing, he felt himself dying,--less from want of food than air, which it was impossible to obtain in so small an apartment, unprovided with a chimney or any other outlet, and hermetically closed, thanks to the fiendish contrivance of Calabash, who had stopped even the most trifling crevices in the door and window with pieces of old rag.
Trembling with joy and apprehension, her eyes streaming with tears, La Louve, kneeling beside Martial, watched his slightest movements, and intently gazed on his features. The unfortunate youth seemed gradually to recover as his lungs inhaled a freer and more healthful atmosphere.
After a few convulsive shudderings he raised his languid head, heaved a deep sigh, and, opening his eyes, looked eagerly around him.
"Martial! "Tis I!--your Louve! How are you now?"
"Better!" replied he, in a feeble voice.
"Thank G.o.d! Will you have a little water or some vinegar?"
"No, no," replied Martial, speaking more naturally; "air, air! Oh, I want only air!"
At the risk of gashing the backs of her hands, La Louve drove them through the four panes of a window she could not have opened without first removing a large and heavy table.
"Now I breathe! I breathe freely! And my head seems quite relieved!"
said Martial, entirely recovering his senses and voice.
Then, as if recalling for the first time the service his mistress had rendered him, he exclaimed, with a burst of ineffable grat.i.tude:
"But for you, my brave Louve, I should soon have been dead!"
"Oh, never mind thinking of that! But tell me, how do you find yourself now?"
"Better--much better!"
"You are hungry, I doubt not?"
"No; I feel myself too weak for that. What I have suffered most cruelly from has been want of air. At last I felt suffocating, strangling, choking. Oh, it was dreadful!"
"But now?"
"I live again. I come forth from the very tomb itself; and that, too, thanks to you!"
"And these cuts upon your poor bleeding hands! For G.o.d"s sake, what have they done to you?"
"Nicholas and Calabash, not daring to attack me openly a second time, fastened me up in my chamber to allow me to perish of hunger in it. I tried to prevent their nailing up my shutters, and my sister chopped my fingers with a hatchet."
"The monsters! They wished to make it appear that you had died of sickness. Your mother had spread the report of your being in a hopeless state. Your mother, my man,--your own mother!"
"Hold!" cried Martial, with bitterness; "mention her not." Then for the first time remarking the wet garments and singular state of La Louve"s attire, he added, "But what has happened to you? Your hair is dripping wet; you have only your underclothes on; and they are drenched through."
"No matter, no matter what has happened to me, since you are saved. Oh, yes,--saved!"
"But explain to me how you became thus wet through."
"I knew you were in danger, and finding no boat--"
"You swam to my rescue?"
"I did. But your hands? Give them to me that I may heal them with my kisses! You are in pain, I fear? Oh, the monsters! And I not here to help you!"
"Oh, my brave Louve!" exclaimed Martial, enthusiastically; "bravest and best of all brave creatures!"
"Did not your hand trace on my arm "Death to the cowardly?" See!" cried La Louve, showing her tattooed arm, on which these very words were indelibly engraved.
"Yes, you are bold and intrepid; but the cold has seized you,--you tremble!"
"Indeed, it is not with cold."
"Never mind,--go in there. You will find Calabash"s cloak; wrap yourself well in it."
"But--"
"I insist!"
In an instant La Louve, who had quickly flown at her lover"s second command, returned wrapped in a plaid mantle.
"To think you ran the risk of drowning yourself,--and all for me!"
resumed Martial, gazing on her with enthusiastic delight.
"Oh, no, not altogether for you. A poor girl was nearly perishing in the river, and I saved her as I landed."
"Saved her also. And where is she?"
"Below with the children, who are taking care of her."