"And you had the courage, the three of you, and the strength to row? It must have taken you an hour?"
"An hour and a half, mummy. There were heaps of sandbanks which blocked our way. At last we landed not far from here in sight of the tower. And when we got here I recognized the voice of d'Estreicher."
"Ah, my poor, dear darlings!"
Again there was a deluge of kisses, which she rained right and left on the cheeks of Saint-Quentin, Castor's forehead, and the Captain's head. And she laughed! And she sang! It was so good to be alive. So good to be no longer face to face with a brute who gripped your wrists and sullied you with his abominable leer! But she suddenly broke off in the middle of these transports.
"And Maître Delarue? I was forgetting him!"
He was lying at the back of his cell behind a rampart of tall grasses.
"Attend to him! Quick, Saint-Quentin, cut his ropes. Goodness! He has fainted. Look here, Maître Delarue, you come to your senses. If not, I leave you."
"Leave me!" cried the notary, suddenly waking up. "But you've no right! The enemy——"
"The enemy has run away, Maître Delarue."
"He may come back. These are terrible people. Look at the hole their chief made in my hat! The donkey finished by throwing me off, just at the entrance to the ruins. I took refuge in a tree and refused to come down. I didn't stay there long. The ruffian knocked my hat off with a bullet."