Part 89

“Do you see, my little girl,” resumed the recluse, interspersing her words with kisses, “I shall love you dearly? We will go away from here. We are going to be very happy. I have inherited something in Reims, in our country. You know Reims? Ah! no, you do not know it; you were too small! If you only knew how pretty you were at the age of four months! Tiny feet that people came even from Epernay, which is seven leagues away, to see! We shall have a field, a house. I will put you to sleep in my bed. My God! my God! who would believe this? I have my daughter!” “Oh, my mother!” said the young girl, at length finding strength to speak in her emotion, “the gypsy woman told me so. There was a good gypsy of our band who died last year, and who always cared for me like a nurse. It was she who placed this little bag about my neck. She always said to me: ‘Little one, guard this jewel well! ’Tis a treasure. It will cause thee to find thy mother once again. Thou wearest thy mother about thy neck.’—The gypsy predicted it!” The sacked nun again pressed her daughter in her arms. “Come, let me kiss you! You say that prettily. When we are in the country, we will place these little shoes on an infant Jesus in the church. We certainly owe that to the good, holy Virgin. What a pretty voice you have! When you spoke to me just now, it was music! Ah! my Lord God! I have found my child again! But is this story credible? Nothing will kill one—or I should have died of joy.” And then she began to clap her hands again and to laugh and to cry out: “We are going to be so happy!” At that moment, the cell resounded with the clang of arms and a galloping of horses which seemed to be coming from the Pont Notre-Dame, amid advancing farther and farther along the quay. The gypsy threw herself with anguish into the arms of the sacked nun. “Save me! save me! mother! they are coming!” “Oh, heaven! what are you saying? I had forgotten! They are in pursuit of you! What have you done?” “I know not,” replied the unhappy child; “but I am condemned to die.” “To die!” said Gudule, staggering as though struck by lightning; “to die!” she repeated slowly, gazing at her daughter with staring eyes. “Yes, mother,” replied the frightened young girl, “they want to kill me. They are coming to seize me. That gallows is for me! Save me! save me! They are coming! Save me!” The recluse remained for several moments motionless and petrified, then she moved her head in sign of doubt, and suddenly giving vent to a burst of laughter, but with that terrible laugh which had come back to her,— “Ho! ho! no! ’tis a dream of which you are telling me. Ah, yes! I lost her, that lasted fifteen years, and then I found her again, and that lasted a minute! And they would take her from me again! And now, when she is beautiful, when she is grown up, when she speaks to me, when she loves me; it is now that they would come to devour her, before my very eyes, and I her mother! Oh! no! these things are not possible. The good God does not permit such things as that.” Here the cavalcade appeared to halt, and a voice was heard to say in the distance,— “This way, Messire Tristan! The priest says that we shall find her at the Rat-Hole.” The noise of the horses began again. The recluse sprang to her feet with a shriek of despair. “Fly! fly! my child! All comes back to me. You are right. It is your death! Horror! Maledictions! Fly!” She thrust her head through the window, and withdrew it again hastily. “Remain,” she said, in a low, curt, and lugubrious tone, as she pressed the hand of the gypsy, who was more dead than alive. “Remain! Do not breathe! There are soldiers everywhere. You cannot get out. It is too light.” Her eyes were dry and burning. She remained silent for a moment; but she paced the cell hurriedly, and halted now and then to pluck out handfuls of her gray hairs, which she afterwards tore with her teeth. Suddenly she said: “They draw near. I will speak with them. Hide yourself in this corner. They will not see you. I will tell them that you have made your escape. That I released you, i’ faith!” She set her daughter (down for she was still carrying her), in one corner of the cell which was not visible from without. She made her crouch down, arranged her carefully so that neither foot nor hand projected from the shadow, untied her black hair which she spread over her white robe to conceal it, placed in front of her her jug and her paving stone, the only articles of furniture which she possessed, imagining that this jug and stone would hide her. And when this was finished she became more tranquil, and knelt down to pray. The day, which was only dawning, still left many shadows in the Rat-Hole. At that moment, the voice of the priest, that infernal voice, passed very close to the cell, crying,— “This way, Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers.” At that name, at that voice, la Esmeralda, crouching in her corner, made a movement. “Do not stir!” said Gudule. She had barely finished when a tumult of men, swords, and horses halted around the cell. The mother rose quickly and went to post herself before her window, in order to stop it up. She beheld a large troop of armed men, both horse and foot, drawn up on the Grève. The commander dismounted, and came toward her. “Old woman!” said this man, who had an atrocious face, “we are in search of a witch to hang her; we were told that you had her.” The poor mother assumed as indifferent an air as she could, and replied,— “I know not what you mean.” The other resumed, “_Tête Dieu!_ What was it that frightened archdeacon said? Where is he?” “Monseigneur,” said a soldier, “he has disappeared.” “Come, now, old madwoman,” began the commander again, “do not lie. A sorceress was given in charge to you. What have you done with her?” The recluse did not wish to deny all, for fear of awakening suspicion, and replied in a sincere and surly tone,— “If you are speaking of a big young girl who was put into my hands a while ago, I will tell you that she bit me, and that I released her. There! Leave me in peace.” The commander made a grimace of disappointment. “Don’t lie to me, old spectre!” said he. “My name is Tristan l’Hermite, and I am the king’s gossip. Tristan the Hermit, do you hear?” He added, as he glanced at the Place de Grève around him, “’Tis a name which has an echo here.” “You might be Satan the Hermit,” replied Gudule, who was regaining hope, “but I should have nothing else to say to you, and I should never be afraid of you.” “_Tête-Dieu_,” said Tristan, “here is a crone! Ah! So the witch girl hath fled! And in which direction did she go?” Gudule replied in a careless tone,— “Through the Rue du Mouton, I believe.” Tristan turned his head and made a sign to his troop to prepare to set out on the march again. The recluse breathed freely once more. “Monseigneur,” suddenly said an archer, “ask the old elf why the bars of her window are broken in this manner.” This question brought anguish again to the heart of the miserable mother. Nevertheless, she did not lose all presence of mind. “They have always been thus,” she stammered. “Bah!” retorted the archer, “only yesterday they still formed a fine black cross, which inspired devotion.” Tristan cast a sidelong glance at the recluse. “I think the old dame is getting confused!” The unfortunate woman felt that all depended on her self-possession, and, although with death in her soul, she began to grin. Mothers possess such strength. “Bah!” said she, “the man is drunk. ’Tis more than a year since the tail of a stone cart dashed against my window and broke in the grating. And how I cursed the carter, too.” “’Tis true,” said another archer, “I was there.” Always and everywhere people are to be found who have seen everything. This unexpected testimony from the archer re-encouraged the recluse, whom this interrogatory was forcing to cross an abyss on the edge of a knife. But she was condemned to a perpetual alternative of hope and alarm. “If it was a cart which did it,” retorted the first soldier, “the stumps of the bars should be thrust inwards, while they actually are pushed outwards.” “Hé! hé!” said Tristan to the soldier, “you have the nose of an inquisitor of the Châtelet. Reply to what he says, old woman.” “Good heavens!” she exclaimed, driven to bay, and in a voice that was full of tears in despite of her efforts, “I swear to you, monseigneur, that ’twas a cart which broke those bars. You hear the man who saw it. And then, what has that to do with your gypsy?” “Hum!” growled Tristan. “The devil!” went on the soldier, flattered by the provost’s praise, “these fractures of the iron are perfectly fresh.” Tristan tossed his head. She turned pale. “How long ago, say you, did the cart do it?” “A month, a fortnight, perhaps, monseigneur, I know not.” “She first said more than a year,” observed the soldier. “That is suspicious,” said the provost. “Monseigneur!” she cried, still pressed against the opening, and trembling lest suspicion should lead them to thrust their heads through and look into her cell; “monseigneur, I swear to you that ’twas a cart which broke this grating. I swear it to you by the angels of paradise. If it was not a cart, may I be eternally damned, and I reject God!” “You put a great deal of heat into that oath;” said Tristan, with his inquisitorial glance. The poor woman felt her assurance vanishing more and more. She had reached the point of blundering, and she comprehended with terror that she was saying what she ought not to have said. Here another soldier came up, crying,— “Monsieur, the old hag lies. The sorceress did not flee through the Rue de Mouton. The street chain has remained stretched all night, and the chain guard has seen no one pass.” Tristan, whose face became more sinister with every moment, addressed the recluse,— “What have you to say to that?” She tried to make head against this new incident, “That I do not know, monseigneur; that I may have been mistaken. I believe, in fact, that she crossed the water.” “That is in the opposite direction,” said the provost, “and it is not very likely that she would wish to re-enter the city, where she was being pursued. You are lying, old woman.” “And then,” added the first soldier, “there is no boat either on this side of the stream or on the other.” “She swam across,” replied the recluse, defending her ground foot by foot. “Do women swim?” said the soldier. “_Tête Dieu!_ old woman! You are lying!” repeated Tristan angrily. “I have a good mind to abandon that sorceress and take you. A quarter of an hour of torture will, perchance, draw the truth from your throat. Come! You are to follow us.” She seized on these words with avidity. “As you please, monseigneur. Do it. Do it. Torture. I am willing. Take me away. Quick, quick! let us set out at once!—During that time,” she said to herself, “my daughter will make her escape.”