Pierre got up and with the lighted match in his hand touched the wick of a lamp which hung at one side of the entrance to the shanty, and which had a reflector that threw the light all over the place. It was evidently that which was used for their sorting at night.
“Not that, stupid! Not that! the lantern!” she called out to him.
He immediately blew it out, saying: “All right, mother I’ll find it,” and he hustled about the left corner of the room—the old woman saying through the darkness:
“The lantern! the lantern! Oh! That is the light that is most useful to us poor folks. The lantern was the friend of the revolution! It is the friend of the chiffonier! It helps us when all else fails.”
Hardly had she said the word when there was a kind of creaking of the whole place, and something was steadily dragged over the roof.
Again I seemed to read between the lines of her words. I knew the lesson of the lantern.
“One of you get on the roof with a noose and strangle him as he passes out if we fail within.”
As I looked out of the opening I saw the loop of a rope outlined black against the lurid sky. I was now, indeed, beset!
Pierre was not long in finding the lantern. I kept my eyes fixed through the darkness on the old woman. Pierre struck his light, and by its flash I saw the old woman raise from the ground beside her where it had mysteriously appeared, and then hide in the folds of her gown, a long sharp knife or dagger. It seemed to be like a butcher’s sharpening iron fined to a keen point.
The lantern was lit.