But it was necessary to recover the corpse of the dead. I attached the valet securely by the loins to the end of the pulley-rope, and I lowered him slowly, and watched him disappear in the darkness. In the one hand he had a lantern, and held on by the rope with the other. Soon I recognized his voice, which seemed to come from the center of the earth, crying:
"Stop."
I then saw him fish something out of the water. It was the other limb. He then bound the two feet together, and shouted anew:
"Haul up."
I commenced to wind him up, but I felt my arms crack, my muscles twitch, and I was in terror lest I should let the man fall to the bottom. When his head appeared at the brink, I asked:
"Well, what is it?" as though I only expected that he would inform me of what he had discovered at the bottom.
We both got on to the stone slab at the edge of the well, and, face to face, we hoisted the body.
Mother Lecacheur and Céleste watched us from a distance, concealed from view behind the wall of the house. When they saw, issuing from the hole, the black slippers and the white stockings of the drowned person, they disappeared.
Sapeur seized the ankles of the poor chaste woman, and we drew it up, sloping, as it was, in the most immodest posture. The head was shocking to look at, being bruised and black; and the long, gray hair, hanging down tangled and disordered.
"In the name of all that is holy, how lean she is!" exclaimed Sapeur, in a contemptuous tone.