The young girl did not answer, and, without raising her eyes, continued to spin assiduously.
“Dost hear?” said the stranger, thrusting her with his foot. “Go and tell thy master that a friend wishes to see him; but first give me some drink. I shall sleep here.”
She answered, in a hoarse voice, still spinning:
“I drink the snow that melts on the rock, or the green scum that floats on the water of the swamp. But when I have spun well, they give me water from the iron spring. When I sleep, the cold lizards crawl over my face; but when I have well cleaned a mule, they throw me hay. The hay is warm; the hay is good and warm. I put it under my marble feet.”
“What tale art thou telling me?” said Jacques. “I spoke not of thee.”
She continued:
“They make me hold a man while they kill him. Oh, what blood I have had on my hands! God forgive them!—if that be possible. They make me hold his head, and the bucket filled with crimson water. O Heaven!—I, who was the bride of God! They throw their bodies into the abyss of snow; but the vulture finds them; he lines his nest with their hair. I now see thee full of life; I shall see thee bloody, pale, and dead.”
The adventurer, shrugging his shoulders, began to whistle as he passed the second door. Within he found the man he had seen through the chinks of the cabin. He wore the blue berret cap of the Basques on one side, and, enveloped in an ample cloak, seated on the pack-saddle of a mule, and bending over a large brazier, smoked a cigar, and from time to time drank from a leather bottle at his side. The light of the brazier showed his full yellow face, as well as the chamber, in which mule-saddles were ranged round the byasero as seats. He raised his head without altering his position.
“Oh, oh! is it thou, Jacques?” he said. “Is it thou? Although ‘tis four years since I saw thee, I recognize thee. Thou art not changed, brigand! There ‘tis still, thy great knave’s face. Sit down there, and take a drink.”
“Yes, here I am. But how the devil camest thou here? I thought thou wert a judge, Houmain!”