"Don't be afraid," whispered Matt. "She has proved herself a friend of ours."
"Yah, meppy, aber I don'd vant her to boint her finger ad me like dot some more."
Yamousa got a small box from a cupboard and emptied a brownish powder out of it into the jar; then, with a pair of tongs, she removed a live coal from the fireplace and dropped it into the jar with the powder.
A wisp of smoke floated upward, accompanied by a sizzling noise. The noise increased until it resembled the buzzing of a swarm of bees, and the smoke spread out until it filled all that part of the room, growing denser every moment.
In and out through the vapor, stumbling around the jar in a sort of dance, moved Yamousa, tossing her arms and crooning a chant.
"Di tems Missié d'Artaguette,
Hé! Ho! Hé!
C'était, c'était bon tems,
Yé té ménin monde a la baguette,
Hé! Ho! Hé!"
The boys stared breathlessly. Yamousa's candle was on the other side of the room, glowing like a coal through the vapor.
Suddenly figures began to take shape in the smoke, the filmy fog thickening in places and decreasing in others as though some invisible hand was moulding the black haze into a scene en silhouette.
By degrees the picture perfected itself until, at last, it lay clearly before the boys.