“Pooh!” said she, “that man is drunk. ‘Twas more than a year ago that the tail of a cart full of stones was backed into my window and destroyed the grating. And, what’s more, I scolded the carter roundly.”
“That’s true,” said another archer; “I was here at the time.”
There are always people everywhere who have seen everything. This unexpected testimony from the archer encouraged the recluse, who during this interrogatory felt as if she were crossing a precipice on the sharp edge of a knife.
But she was condemned to a continual alternation between hope and fear.
“If it was done by a cart,” returned the first soldier, “the broken ends of the bars would have been driven inward; but they are bent outward.”
“Ho! ho!” said Tristan; “your nose is as sharp as that of any inquisitor at the Chatelet. Answer him, old woman!”
“Good heavens!” she cried, at her wits’ end, and in a voice which despite all her efforts was tearful, “I swear, sir, that it was a cart which broke those bars. You heard that man say he saw it; and besides, what has that to do with your gipsy?”
“Hum!” growled Tristan.
“The devil!” added the soldier, flattered by the provost’s praises; “the fractures in the iron are quite fresh!”
Tristan shook his head. She turned pale.
“How long ago did you say this affair of the cart occurred?”
“A month,—perhaps a fortnight, sir. I’m sure I don’t remember.”
“She said it was a year, just now,” observed the soldier.
“That looks queer!” said the provost.
“Sir,” she cried, still pressing close to the window, and trembling lest their suspicions should lead them to put in their heads and examine the cell,—“sir, I swear it was a cart that broke these bars; I swear it by all the angels in paradise! If it was not a cart, may I be damned forever: and may God renounce me.”
“You seem very ready to swear!” said Tristan, with his searching glance.
The poor woman felt her courage sink. She was in a state to commit any folly, and with terror she realized she was saying what she ought not to say.
Here another soldier ran up, shouting,— “Sir, the old fagot lies. The witch did not escape through the Rue du Mouton. The chain has been stretched across the street all night, and the chain-keeper has seen no one pass.”
Tristan, whose face grew more forbidding every instant, addressed the recluse:— “What have you to say to this?”
She still strove to brave this fresh contradiction.
“I don’t know, sir; I may have been mistaken. I dare say, indeed, that she crossed the water.”
“That is in the opposite direction,” said the provost. “However, it is not very likely that she would wish to return to the City, where she was closely pursued. You lie, old woman!”
“And then,” added the first soldier, “there is no boat either on this side of the water or on the other.”
“Perhaps she swam across,” replied the recluse, disputing the ground inch by inch.
“Can women swim?” said the soldier.
“Odds bodikins! old woman! you lie! you lie!” angrily rejoined Tristan. “I have a great mind to let the witch go, and hang you in her stead. A quarter of an hour of the rack may wring the truth from your lips. Come! follow us!”
She seized eagerly upon his words:— “As you like, sir. So be it, so be it! The rack. I am willing. Take me. Be quick; be quick. Let us be off at once. Meantime,” thought she, “my daughter may escape.”
“Zounds!” said the provost; “so greedy for the rack! I don’t understand this mad-woman!”
An old grey-headed sergeant of the watch stepped from the ranks, and addressing the provost, said,— “Mad, indeed, sir! If she let the gipsy go, it was not her fault, for she has no liking for gipsies. For fifteen years I have done duty on the watch, and I have heard her curse the gipsy women nightly with endless execrations. If the girl of whom we are in search is, as I suppose, the little dancer with the goat, she particularly detests her.”
Gudule made an effort, and said,— “Particularly.”
The unanimous testimony of the men belonging to the watch confirmed the old sergeant’s statement. Tristan l‘Hermite, despairing of learning anything from the recluse, turned his back upon her, and with unspeakable anxiety she saw him move slowly towards his horse.
“Come,” he muttered, “we must be off. Let us resume our search. I shall not sleep until this gipsy girl be hanged.”