Véronique had an idea, absurd though she knew it to be, that they were perhaps building a foot-bridge; and she clutched her gun resolutely.
About an hour later, she seemed to hear moans and even a stifled cry, followed, for some time, by the rustle of leaves and the sound of steps coming and going. This ceased. Once more there was a great silence which seemed to absorb in space every stirring, every restless, every quivering, every living thing.
The numbness produced by the fatigue and hunger from which she was beginning to suffer left Véronique little power of thought. She remembered above all that, having failed to bring any provisions from the village, she had nothing to eat. She did not distress herself, for she was determined, as soon as the fog lifted—and this was bound to happen before long—to light bonfires with the cans of petrol. She reflected that the best place would be at the end of the island, at the spot where the dolmen stood.
But suddenly a dreadful thought struck her: had she not left her box of matches on the bridge? She felt in her pockets but could not find it. All search was in vain.
This also did not perturb her unduly. For the time being, the feeling that she had escaped the attacks of the enemy filled her with such delight that it seemed to her that all the difficulties would disappear of their own accord.
The hours passed in this way, endlessly long hours, which the penetrating fog and the cold made more painful as the morning approached.
Then a faint gleam overspread the sky. Things emerged from the gloom and assumed their actual forms. And Véronique now saw that the bridge had collapsed throughout its length. An interval of fifty yards separated the two islands, which were only joined below by the sharp, pointed, inaccessible ridge of the cliff.
She was saved.
But, on raising her eyes to the hill opposite, she saw, right at the top of the slope, a sight that made her utter a cry of horror. Three of the nearest trees of those which crowned the hill and belonged to the wood of the Great Oak had been stripped of their lower branches. And, on the three bare trunks, with their arms strained backward, with their legs bound, under the tatters of their skirts, and with ropes drawn tight beneath their livid faces, half-hidden by the black bows of their caps, hung the three sisters Archignat.
They were crucified.