The rascals applauded, and recommenced their shameful jokes and infernal proposals. Isidore, once more master of the assembly, spoke at greater length, and ended by exacting an oath that no one should move in the cause until a given signal from Paris. They all swore as he wished, and, as the night was far advanced, honest Perdreau took leave of his good friends, fearing that daylight might surprise him before he could regain his house.
Jean-Louis needed all the strength mercifully granted by the good God in such a trying moment to listen until the end to all these horrors. The blood boiled in his veins; he felt neither the snow, nor the biting north wind, and more than once his indignation was so great, he stepped forward and clenched his fist, as though he would throw himself in the midst of those demons, without reflecting that a solid wall separated them from him. Happily, he restrained himself; for courage is not imprudence, and, if he had failed in coolness, he would have lost all the results of the important discovery he had just made. He went back to Michou's cabin, whom he found awaiting his return, according to his promise, and who had commenced to feel very anxious about his long absence.
"M. Jacques," said he, on entering, "I came very near not returning...."
And in a few words he recounted all he had heard and seen.
Michou said not a word. He relighted his pipe, and paced the floor, plunged in thought.
"I knew the Perdreaux were famous scamps," said he at last, "but not quite so bad as that!"
"Oh!" cried Jeannet, "if my death could have saved Jeannette from that rascal, I would have broken in the door and fallen in the midst of them without hesitation."
"A very stupid thing you would have done, then," replied Michou; "they would have killed you, and to-morrow announced that you had fallen from a tree. That would have been a lucky thing for Perdreau."
"God watched over me," replied Jean-Louis. "And now, what shall we do?"
"That little Ragaud," said Michou, "deserves it all for her frivolity and vanity; and, as a punishment, we should let her go to the end of the rope with her Isidore."