“M’sieu the mayor,” ventured the messenger, “there’s Jacqueline.”
“Ho! Vrai. The Lizard’s young one! She can drum, they say. She stole my drum once. Why did she steal it but to drum upon it?”
“The little witch can drum them awake in Ker-Is,” muttered the messenger.
The mayor rose, looked around the square, frowned. Then he raised his voice in a bellow: “Jacqueline! Jacqueline! Thou Jacqueline!”
A far voice answered, faintly breaking across the square from the bridge: “She is on the rocks with her sea-rake!”
The mayor thrust the blue telegram into his pocket and waddled out of his garden, across the square, and up the path to the cliffs.
Uninvited, I went with him.