The cries of La Chouette could not reach the upper apartments. The wretch, seeing she had no aid to expect from the son of Bras-Rouge, tried a last effort.
"Tortillard, go for help; and I will give you my basket, it is full of jewels. It is there under a stone."
"How generous you are! Thank you, ma'am! Don't you know that I have your swag? Hold, don't you hear it jingle?" said Tortillard shaking it. "But give me two sous to buy some hot cake and I'll go seek papa."
"Have pity on me, and I—" La Chouette could not proceed. Again there was a pause.
The little cripple recommenced the stamping of his feet, and cried,
"Why don't you begin? Up with the curtain! Go ahead, will you, now?
Music, music!"
"La Chouette, you can no longer deafen me with your cries," said the Schoolmaster, after some minutes, during which he had succeeded in gagging the old woman. "You know well," resumed he, in a slow and hollow tone, "that I do not wish to finish you at once. Torture for torture. You have made me suffer enough. I must talk to you a long time before I kill you—yes, a long time. It will be frightful for you! What agony!"
"Come, none of your nonsense, old man," cried Tortillard, half rising. "Correct her; but do not hurt her. You speak of killing her; it's only a joke, is it not! I like my Chouette. I have lent her to you, but you must return her to me. Don't damage her. I will not have any one harm my Chouette, or I will go and call papa."
"Be not alarmed; she shall only have what she deserves—a profitable lesson," said the robber, to reassure Tortillard, fearing that the cripple would go for help.
"Very good! bravo! Now the play begins," said the boy, who did not believe that the Schoolmaster seriously meditated to destroy La Chouette.
"Let us talk a little," resumed the Schoolmaster, in a calm voice, to the old woman. "In the first place, since a dream I had at the farm of Bouqueval, which brought before my eyes all our crimes, which almost made me mad, which will make me mad—for in the solitude and profound state of isolation in which I live, all my thoughts, in spite of myself, tend toward this dream—a strange change has taken place within me. Yes, I have thought with horror of my past wickedness. In the first place, I did not allow you to disfigure the Goualeuse. That was nothing. By chaining me here in this cave, by making me suffer cold and hunger, but by delivering me from your provocation, you have left me alone to all the horrors of my thoughts. Oh! you do not know what it is to be alone, always alone, with a black veil over the eyes, as the implacable man said who punished me." (This was Rudolph who had had him blinded.) "It is fearful! See now! In this cellar I wished to kill him, but this cellar is the place of my punishment. It will be perhaps my grave!