“Maman's drying your money by the stove. It's all safe. How rich they are, these Americans!”
“And to think that I nearly threw it overboard with the trousers,” said the other woman again.
John Andrews began to look about him. He was in a dark low cabin. Behind him, in the direction of the voices, a yellow light flickered. Great dishevelled shadows of heads moved about on the ceiling. Through the close smell of the cabin came a warmth of food cooking. He could hear the soothing hiss of frying grease.
“But didn't you see the Kid?” he asked in English, dazedly trying to pull himself together, to think coherently. Then he went on in French in a more natural voice:
“There was another one with me.”
“We saw no one. Rosaline, ask the old man,” said the older woman.
“No, he didn't see anyone,” came the girl's shrill voice. She walked over to the bed and pulled the coverlet round Andrews with an awkward gesture. Looking up at her, he had a glimpse of the bulge of her breasts and her large teeth that glinted in the lamplight, and very vague in the shadow, a mop of snaky, disordered hair.
“Qu'il parle bien francais,” she said, beaming at him. Heavy steps shuffled across the cabin as the older woman came up to the bed and peered in his face.
“Il va mieux,” she said, with a knowing air.
She was a broad woman with a broad flat face and a swollen body swathed in shawls. Her eyebrows were very bushy, and she had thick grey whiskers that came down to a point on either side of her mouth, as well as a few bristling hairs on her chin. Her voice was deep and growling, and seemed to come from far down inside her huge body.