"Good God!" cried Alison, now weeping with joy and embracing Aveline in a transport of happiness. "Do you hear, dear little one? He is not dead."
Aveline joined her hands and essayed to speak, but the words died away on her lips that trembled convulsively.
"This is what happened," explained Jocelyn. "Mazurec was put into a bag and he was thrown into the water. Fortunately, however," Jocelyn hastened to add, seeing Aveline utter a smothered cry, "Adam the Devil and myself, profiting by the darkness, had hidden ourselves among the reeds that border the bank of the river about a hundred paces from the bridge. The current was toward us. With the aid of a long pole we sought to drag towards us the bag in which Mazurec was tied up, and to pull him out in time."
"Oh!" stammered the young girl. "Help came too late."
"No, no! Calm yourself. We succeeded in drawing the bag to the bank. Adam cut it open with one rip of his knife, and we took Mazurec out of the canvas still breathing."
"He lives!" exclaimed the girl in a delirium of joy. Her first movement was to precipitate herself towards the door, and there she fell in the arms of her father, who, having just returned, stood on the threshold.
"Yes, he lives!" said Caillet to his daughter, closing her to his breast. "He lives ... and he is here!"
That same instant Mazurec appeared at the threshold, pale, faint, dripping water, his face unrecognizable, and supported by Adam the Devil. Instead of running to the encounter of her husband, Aveline staggered back frightened and cried: "It is not he!"
She did not recognize Mazurec. His crushed eye, encircled with black and blue concussions, his crushed nose, his lips split and swollen, so completely changed his once sweet and attractive features, that the hesitation of the vassal's wife lasted several seconds; but soon recovered from her painful surprise, she threw herself at the neck of Mazurec, and kissed his wounds with frantic excitement.
Mazurec returned the embrace of his wife and murmured sadly: "Oh, poor wife ... although I still live, yet you are a widow."