The widow could no longer contain herself; not doubting the treason of Bras-Rouge, which she had prophesied, she cried, "I was sure that you sold my son who is at Toulon. There, Judas!" and she spat in his face. "You sell our heads; so be it; they will see handsome corpses-corpses of the real Martials!"
"Yes; we will not budge before the scaffold," added Calabash, with savage pride.
The widow, pointing to Nicholas with a withering glance of contempt, said to her daughter, "This coward will dishonor us on the scaffold!"
Some moments afterward, the widow and Calabash, accompanied by two police, were placed in a cab and sent to Saint Lazare. The three men were conducted to La Force. The Schoolmaster was transported to the depot of the Conciergerie, where there are cells destined to receive temporarily the insane.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE INTRODUCTION.
Some days after the murder of Mrs. Seraphin, the death of La Chouette, and the arrest of the band of malefactors surprised at Bras-Rouge's, Rudolph repaired to the house in the Rue du Temple.
We have said that—intending to overcome cunning by cunning, and to expose the concealed crimes of Jacques Ferrand to the punishment they merited, notwithstanding the address and hypocrisy with which he disguised them—Rudolph had caused to be brought from her prison in Germany a girl named Cecily.
She was a very beautiful quadroon, whose story ran briefly thus: Owned by a Louisiana planter, he had refused permission for her to marry another of his slaves, known as David, because he had, sultan-like, set his own choice upon her. David, by intelligence, and a long stay in France, had attained the position of surgeon on the plantation, and resisted his master with all the strength of his love for the girl. He was flogged, and Cecily locked up. At this juncture, Rudolph's yacht was off the plantation. He heard the story, and, landing in the night with a boat's crew, carried off David and Cecily in the planter's teeth, leaving him a large sum in indemnification. The slaves were wedded in France, but David won no happiness. He became Rudolph's physician-in-chief, worthily filling the post; but Cecily's three-part-white blood revolted at her union with a negro, and she flung herself into the first arms open to her. Her life was a series of scandals, so that David would have killed her; but Rudolph induced him to prefer her life imprisonment in Germany. Thence she is now brought.
Having arrived the evening previous, this creature, as handsome as she was perverted, as enchanting as she was dangerous, had received detailed instructions from Baron de Graun.