"Cranajour!... Cranajour!"
Mother Toulouche shouted herself breathless: she tried to shout louder and louder. It was in vain. She might shout herself hoarse—there was no reply.
The old termagant, who had left the front of her hovel and had gone to call her assistant, shouting in the passage at the back of the store, returned cursing and swearing, and seated herself near the store in the lean-to which did duty as a kitchen:
"Where in the devil's name has that imbecile got to?" she grumbled, whilst sipping with gusts from the bottom of a cup, into which she had poured a small allowance of coffee and a copious ration of rum. It was about eleven in the evening. There was not a sound to be heard.
Having finished her rum and tea the old receiver of stolen goods went to the entrance of the passage:
"Cranajour!... Cranajour!" yelled the old termagant.
There was no answer.
"He can't possibly be in his canteen," said Mother Toulouche to herself. "If he was he'd have answered, fool though he is, and would have come down!... Sure he's gone to drag his old down-at-heels somewhere—but where?... Oh, well, we can manage to do without him!"
The old receiver went back to her store, and was starting on a queer sort of job when the door, which led on to the quay, burst open before a panting, breathless individual. He ran right up the store and stopped short. Mother Toulouche had seized the first thing she could find, and had taken up a defensive attitude. Her weapon was a great ancient cavalry sabre!