Bidiane and Claudine withdrew among the trees, stifling their laughter and trying to calm the dog, who had finally reached a state of frenzy at this mysterious separation.
"My unfortunate aunt!" murmured Bidiane; "do let us put an end to this."
Claudine was snickering convulsively. She had begun to array herself in one of the sheets, and was transported with amusement and anticipation.
Meanwhile, doubt and discord had reared their disturbing heads among the members of the digging party. Mirabelle Marie persisted in throwing up the spade too soon, and the other women, regarding her with glowing, eloquent looks, quietly arranged that the honorable agricultural implement, now perverted to so unbecoming a use, should return to her hands with disquieting frequency.
The earth was soft here by the lake, yet it was heavy to lift out, for the hole had now become quite deep. Suddenly, to the horror and anger of Nannichette and the other two women, both of whom were beginning to have mysterious warnings and impressions that they were now on the brink of discovery of one pot of gold, and perhaps two, there was an impatient exclamation from Mirabelle Marie.
"The divil!" she cried, and her voice broke out shrilly in the deathly silence; "Bidiane was right. It ain't no speerit you saw. I'm goin'," and she scrambled out of the hole.
With angry reproaches for her precipitancy and laziness, the other women fell upon her with their tongues. She had given them this long walk to the lake, she had spoiled everything, and, as their furious voices smote the still air, Bidiane, Claudine, and the dog emerged slowly and decently from the heavy gloom behind them like ghosts rising from the lake.
"I will give you a bit of my sheet," Bidiane had said to Bastarache; consequently he stalked beside them like a diminutive bogey in a graceful mantle of white.
"Ah, mon jheu! chesque j'vois?" (what do I see), screamed Suretta, who was the first to catch sight of them. "Ten candles to the Virgin if I get out of this!" and she ran like a startled deer.
With various expressions of terror, the others followed her. They carried with them the appearance of the white ethereal figures, standing against the awful black background of the trees, and as they ran, their shrieks and yells of horror, particularly those from Mirabelle Marie, were so heartrending that Bidiane, in sudden compunction, screamed to her, "Don't you know me, my aunt? It is Bidiane, your niece. Don't be afraid!"