Each of them switched on his pocket-lamp and felt the handle of his revolver. They crossed the plank between the shore and the boat. A few steps downwards brought them to the cabin. The door was locked.
“Hi, mate! Open this, will you?”
There was no reply. They now set about breaking it down, which was no easy matter, for it was massive and quite unlike an ordinary cabin-door.
At last it gave way.
“By Jingo!” said Don Luis, who was the first to go in. “I didn’t expect this!”
“What?”
“Look. The woman whom they called Grégoire. She seems to be dead.”
She was lying back on a little iron bedstead, with her man’s blouse open at the top and her chest uncovered. Her face still bore an expression of extreme terror. The disordered appearance of the cabin suggested that a furious struggle had taken place.
“I was right. Here, by her side, are the clothes she wore at Mantes. But what’s the matter, captain?”
Patrice had stifled a cry: