She looked at it all, going through it with her hand on her knife.
"One spark," she thought, playing with the grim temptation that possessed her—"one spark on the dry thatch, and what a bonfire they would have for their feasting!"
The thought was sweet to her.
Injustice had made her ravenous and savage. When she had tried to do well and to save life, these people had accused her of taking it by evil sorcery.
She felt a longing to show them what evil indeed she could do, and to see them burn, and to hear them scream vainly, and then to say to them with a laugh, as the flames licked up their homes and their lives, "Another time, take care how you awake a witch!"
Why did she not do it? She did not know; she had brought out a flint and tinder in the pouch that hung at her side. It would be as easy as to pluck a sere leaf; she knew that.
She stood still and played with her fancy, and it was horrible and sweet to her—so sweet because so horrible.
How soon their mirth would be stilled!
As she stood thinking there, and seeing in fancy the red glare that would light up that peaceful place, and hearing the roar of the lurid flames that would drown the music, and the laughter, and the children's shouts, out of the twilight there rose to her a small, dark thing, with a halo of light round its head: the thing was little Bernardou, and the halo was the shine of his curling hair in the lingering light.
He caught her skirts in his hands, and clung to her and sobbed.