"M'sieu veut se lever? C'est midi!"
Not in the least understanding what was said, Bertie cried again, "Come in!"
The door was opened a few inches, and the old crone looked in. She stared at Bertie sitting up in bed, and Bertie stared at her.
"M'sieu, vot' oncle! Il dort?"
"I don't know what you mean," said Bertie.
They were in the agreeable position of not having either of them the faintest conception of what the other said. She came further into the room and looked about her. Then she saw that the captain's bed was empty.
"Vot' oncle! Où est-il donc?"
Bertie stared, as though by dint of staring he could get at what she meant. The Mecklemburg House curriculum had included French, but not the sort of French which the old lady talked. "Mon père" and "ma mère," that was about the extent of Bertie's knowledge of foreign tongues; and even those simple words he would not have recognised coming from the peculiarly voluble lips of this ancient dame.
While he was still endeavouring to understand, from the expression of her face, what it was she said, all at once she began to scold him. Of course he had still not the slightest knowledge as to what were the actual words she used; but her voice, her gestures, and the expression of her countenance needed no interpreter. Never very much to look at, she suddenly became as though possessed with an evil spirit, seeming to rain down anathemas on his non-understanding head with all the virulence of the legendary witch of old.
What was the matter Bertie had not the least conception, but that something was the matter was plain enough. Her shrill voice rose to a piercing screech. She seemed half choked with the velocity of her speech. Her wrinkled face assumed a dozen different hideous shapes. She shook her yellow claws as though she would have liked to have attacked him then and there.