"Sacredié! who would suppose there was one living Christian still here? I say one, for I don't call Judas a Christian."
The widow quivered; beside the dead she had indeed forgotten the dying.
"I'll go back to the house and send help," she said.
"Help? Don't do anything of the kind; they'd only cure me for the guillotine; and, thank you, la Picaut, I'd rather die the death of a soldier. I've got it, and I won't let go of it now."
"Do you suppose I'd give you up to the authorities?"
"Yes; for you are a Blue and the wife of a Blue. Damn it! the capture of Maître Jacques would make a fine figure on your record-book."
"My husband was a patriot, and I shared his feelings, that is true. But I have a horror, above all things, of traitors and treachery. For all the gold in the world I would not betray a person, not even you."
"You say you have a horror of treachery. Do you hear that, you cur?"
"Come, Jacques, let me send help," said the widow.
"No," said the Chouan bandit, "I'm at the end of my tether; I feel it and I know it. I've made too many such holes not to know all about it. In two hours, or three at most, I shall be disporting myself on the great open moor,--the last, grand, beautiful moor of the good God. But listen to me now."