"My man heard me! I must and will get in somehow, if I gnaw the door away with my teeth."
And again she reiterated her frantic cries and adjurations to Martial. Several faint blows struck inside the closed shutters of Martial's chamber replied to the yells and screams of La Louve.
"He is there!" cried she, suddenly stopping beneath the window of her lover. "He is there! I am sure of it; and if all other means fail I will strip off that tin with my nails, but I will wrench those shutters open!"
So saying, she glanced frantically around in search of something to aid her efforts to free her lover, when her eye caught sight of a ladder partly hanging against one of the outside shutters of the sitting-room. Hastily pulling the shutter, the more quickly to disengage the ladder, the key of the outer door, left by the widow on the sill of the window, fell to the ground.
"Oh, if this be only the right key!" cried La Louve, trying it in the lock of the entrance door; "I can go straight up stairs to his chamber. Oh, it turns! It opens!" exclaimed La Louve, with delight; "and my man is saved!"
Once in the kitchen she was struck by the cries of the two children, who, shut up in the cellar, and hearing an unusual noise, called loudly for help. The widow, persuaded that no person would visit the isle or her dwelling, had contented herself with double-locking the door upon François and Amandine, leaving the key in the lock.
Released by La Louve, the two children hurried from the cellar to the kitchen.
"Oh, La Louve!" exclaimed François, "save our dear Brother Martial; they want him to die! For two days he has been shut up in his room!"
"They have not wounded him, have they?"
"No, no, I think not!"