—"Cousin's, and little Michael's."
—"Dorot's coming?" inquired Mathieu, looking towards the platform of the Ile des Morts. "How do you know?"
—"Can't we talk by signal just as well as his Majesty's ships?" said Geneviève laughing. "Look, he has hung out of his window three small red handkerchiefs; that's to tell us that he's coming over. Besides, I saw Michael going down to the Superintendent's."
—"Bravo!" cried Ropars, his face lighting up; "your cousin and the boy must sup with us—that is to say, if your pantry is not quite so empty as your hospital."
Geneviève protested, and then enumerated with an air of complacency all her culinary resources, which had fortunately been replenished, two days before, by the Superintendent, who supplied at the same time the powder-magazine and the lazaretto. Mathieu promised to complete the feast by broaching for the artillery-man an old bottle of Rousillon wine, stowed away for a long time under the sand of his cellar.
The two little girls at this moment came up on to the terrace.
—"Quick, here!" cried Geneviève, "quick; there's somebody coming."
—"Monsieur Gabriel?" asked Josèphe, springing forward with this exclamation.
—"No, no, goose-cap—cousin Dorot and little Michael."
An involuntary gesture of disappointment escaped from the child; but Francine clapped her hands and broke out into shouts of joy. The goat, left to herself, bounded along the precipitous slopes of the rocks, where she set to work browsing on the tufts of brackish herbage; the sisters took each other's hand to go down towards the little landing-place; whilst their mother went into the house with a view of getting everything in readiness.