"I have arrived just in time, it seems," cried La Louve, rushing towards the staircase, and hastily mounting the stairs. Then, suddenly stopping, she exclaimed, "Ah, but La Goualeuse! I quite forgot her. Amandine, my child, light a fire directly; and then do you and your brother fetch a poor, half-drowned girl you will find lying outside the door under the porch, and place her before the fire. She would have been quite dead, if I had not saved her. François, quick! Bring me a crowbar, a hatchet, an axe, anything, that I may break in the door that confines my man!"
"There is the cleaver we split wood with, but it is too heavy for you," said the lad, dragging forward an enormous chopper.
"Too heavy! I don't even feel it!" cried La Louve, swinging the ponderous weapon, which, at another time, she would have had much difficulty in lifting, as though it had been a feather.
Then, proceeding with hurried steps up-stairs, she called out to the children:
"Go and fetch the young girl I told you of, and place her by the fire."
And, with two bounds, La Louve reached the corridor, at the end of which was situated the apartment of Martial.
"Courage! Courage, my man! Your Louve is here!" cried she, and, lifting the cleaver with both hands, she dashed it furiously against the door.
"It is fastened on the outside," moaned Martial, in a feeble voice; "draw out the nails,—you cannot open it otherwise."
Throwing herself upon her knees in the passage, by the help of the edge of the cleaver, her nails, which she almost tore bleeding from their roots, and her fingers, which were lacerated and torn, La Louve contrived to extract the huge nails which fastened the door all around. At length her heroic exertions were crowned with success,—the door yielded to her efforts, and Martial, pale, bleeding, and almost exhausted, fell into the arms of his mistress.
"At last—I have you—I hold you—I press you to my heart!" exclaimed La Louve, as she received and tenderly pressed Martial in her arms, with a joy of possession that partook almost of savage energy. She supported, or, rather, carried him to a bench placed in the corridor. For several minutes Martial remained weak and haggard, endeavouring to recover from the violent surprise which had proved nearly too much for his exhausted strength. La Louve had come to the succour of her lover at the very instant when, worn-out and despairing, he felt himself dying,—less from want of food than air, which it was impossible to obtain in so small an apartment, unprovided with a chimney or any other outlet, and hermetically closed, thanks to the fiendish contrivance of Calabash, who had stopped even the most trifling crevices in the door and window with pieces of old rag.