"Buried there!" said François, with a shudder.
The felon's widow, in spite of her impassiveness, could not repress a sudden start; her daughter did the same. It seemed as though the two women were struck with an electric shock.
"Some one buried by the wood-pile?" said Calabash, shrugging her shoulders.
"I tell you that just now, whilst I was piling up some wood, I saw in a dark corner near the wood-pile a dead man's bone; it was sticking a little way out of the ground where it was damp, just by the corner," added François.
"Do you hear him, mother? Why, the boy's a fool!" said Calabash, making a signal to the widow. "They are mutton-bones I put there for washing-lye."
"It was not a mutton-bone," replied the boy, with alarm, "it was a dead person's bones,—a dead man's bones. I saw quite plainly a foot that stuck out of the ground."
"And, of course, you told your brother, your dear friend Martial, of your grand discovery, didn't you?" asked Calabash, with brutal irony.
François made no reply.
"Nasty little spy!" said Calabash, savagely; "because he is as cowardly as a cur, and would as soon see us scragged, as our father was scragged before us."
"If you call me a spy, I'll tell my brother Martial everything!" said François, much enraged. "I haven't told him yet, for I haven't seen him since; but, when he comes here this evening, I'll—"