"Bah! You mistrust everybody, mother; you are always fancying they are going to play you some trick. To-day it is the Chouette, yesterday it was Bras-Rouge."
"Bras-Rouge is at liberty,—my son is at Toulon, yet they committed the same robbery."
"You are always saying this. Bras-Rouge escaped because he is as cunning as a fox—that's it; the Chouette did not stay, because she had an appointment at two o'clock, near the Observatory, with the tall man in black, at whose desire she has carried off this young country girl, by the help of the Schoolmaster and Tortillard; and Barbillon drove the hackney-coach which the tall man in black had hired for the job. So how, mother, do you suppose the Chouette would inform against us, when she tells us the 'jobs' she has in hand, and we do not tell her ours? for she knows nothing of this drowning job that is to come off directly. Be easy, mother; wolves don't eat each other, and this will be a good day's work; and when I recollect, too, that the jewel-matcher has often about her twenty to thirty thousand francs' worth of diamonds in her bag, and that, in less than two hours, we shall have her in Bras-Rouge's cellar! Thirty thousand francs' worth of diamonds, mother! Think of that!"
"And, whilst we lay hands on this woman, Bras-Rouge is to remain outside the cabaret?" inquired the widow, with an air of suspicion.
"Well, and where would you have him, I should like to know? If any one comes to his house, mustn't he be outside the door to answer them, and prevent them from entering the place whilst we are doing our 'job?'"
"Nicholas! Nicholas!" cried Calabash, at this moment from outside, "here come the two women!"
"Quick, quick, mother! Your shawl! I will land you on the other side, and that will be so much done," said Nicholas.
The widow had replaced her mourning head-dress with a high black cap, in which she now made her appearance. At the instigation of Nicholas, she wrapped herself in a large plaid shawl, with gray and white checks; and, after having carefully closed and secured the kitchen door, she placed the key behind one of the window-shutters on the ground-floor, and followed her son, who was hastily pursuing his way to the landing-place. Almost involuntarily, as she quitted the island, she cast a long and meditative look at Martial's window; and the train of thought to which its firmly nailed and iron-bound exterior gave rise seemed, to judge by their effect, to be of a very mingled and complicated character, for she knitted her brows, pursed her lips, and then, after a sudden convulsive shudder, she murmured, in a low hesitating voice:
"It is his own fault—it is his own fault!"
"Nicholas, do you see them? Just down there, along the path,—a country girl and an old woman!" exclaimed Calabash, pointing to the other side of the river, where Madame Séraphin and Fleur-de-Marie were descending a narrow, winding path which passed by a high bank, on the top of which were the lime-kilns.