Still, he hesitated some time before mounting his horse. Gudule trembled between life and death as she saw him glance about the square with the restless air of a hunting-dog, which scents the lair of the wild beast and refuses to depart. At last he shook his head and leaped into his saddle. Gudule’s terribly overladen heart swelled, and she said in a low voice, with a glance at her daughter, at whom she had not dared to look while the soldiers were there, “Saved!”
The poor girl had crouched in her corner all this time, without moving or breathing, staring death in the face. She had lost none of the scene between Gudule and Tristan, and each of her mother’s pangs had found an echo in her own soul. She had heard the successive snappings of the thread which held her suspended over the abyss; twenty times she had felt that it must break, and now at last she began to breathe freely, and to hope that her footing was secure. At this instant she heard a voice say to the provost,— “‘Sblood! Mr. Provost, it is no business for a soldier to hang witches. The mob still rages yonder. I must leave you to your own devices. You will not object to my rejoining my company, who are left without a captain.”
This voice was that of Ph?bus de Chateaupers. She underwent an indescribable revulsion of feeling. So he was there,—her friend, her protector, her stay, her refuge, her Phoebus! She rose, and before her mother could prevent her, flew to the window, crying,— “Ph?bus! help, my Phoebus!”
Ph?bus was no longer there.22 He had just galloped round the corner of the Rue de la Coutellerie. But Tristan was not yet gone.
The recluse flung herself upon her daughter with a roar. She dragged her violently back, digging her nails into her neck. A tigress does not look twice when the safety of her young is in question. But it was too late. Tristan had seen her.
“Ha! ha!” cried he, with a laugh which bared all his teeth, and made his face look like the muzzle of a wolf, “two mice in the trap!”
“I thought as much,” said the soldier.
Tristan clapped him on the shoulder, “You are a famous cat! Come,” he added, “where is Henriet Cousin?”
A man who had neither the dress nor the manner of a soldier stepped from the ranks. He wore a motley garb of brown and grey, his hair was smooth and lank, his sleeves were of leather, and in his huge hand was a bundle of rope. This man always accompanied Tristan, who always accompanied Louis XI.
“My friend,” said Tristan l‘Hermite, “I presume that this is the witch we are seeking. You will hang her for me. Have you your ladder?”
“There is one yonder under the shed of the Maison-aux-Piliers,” replied the man. “Are we to do the business on this gallows?” he continued, pointing to the stone gibbet.
“Yes.”
“Ho! ho!” rejoined the man, with a coarse laugh even more bestial than that of the provost; “we sha‘n’t have far to go.”
“Despatch!” said Tristan; “you can laugh afterwards.”
Meantime, since Tristan had seen her daughter, and all hope was lost, the recluse had not spoken a word. She had cast the poor gipsy, almost lifeless, into the corner of the cell, and resumed her place at the window, her hands clinging to the sides of the frame like two claws. In this position her eyes wandered boldly over the soldiers, the light of reason having once more faded from them. When Henriet Cousin approached her refuge, she glared so savagely at him that he shrank back.
“Sir,” said he, returning to the provost, “which am I to take?”
“The young one.”
“So much the better; for the old one seems hard to manage.”
“Poor little dancer with the goat!” said the old sergeant of the watch.
Henriet Cousin again advanced to the window. The mother’s eye made his own fall. He said somewhat timidly,— “Madame,—”
She interrupted him in very low but furious tones: “What do you want?”
“Not you,” said he; “it is the other.”
“What other?”
“The young one.”
She began to wag her head, crying,— “There’s nobody here! there’s nobody here! there’s nobody here!”
“Yes, there is!” rejoined the hangman, “and you know it well. Let me have the young one. I don’t want to harm you.”
She said with a strange sneer,—
“Ah! you don’t want to harm me!”
“Let me have the other, madame; it is the provost’s will.”
She repeated with a foolish look,— “There’s nobody here!”