Then his brow dropped, as if under a burden, and he continued,—
"The night took the trouble to kill the woman."
Raising his eyes, they met those of the boy, just awakened, who was listening. Ursus addressed him abruptly,—
"What are you laughing about?"
The boy answered,—
"I am not laughing."
Ursus felt a kind of shock, looked at him fixedly for a few minutes, and said,—
"Then you are frightful."
The interior of the caravan, on the previous night, had been so dark that Ursus had not yet seen the boy's face. The broad daylight revealed it. He placed the palms of his hands on the two shoulders of the boy, and, examining his countenance more and more piercingly, exclaimed,—
"Do not laugh any more!"