"Your horrible hope will not be realized, mother!" answered Martial, indignantly. "Neither they nor I shall ever more have misery to fear. La Louve saved the young girl whom Nicholas wished to drown, the relations of this girl have proposed to give us plenty of money, or less money and some lands in Algiers. We have preferred the land. There is some danger, but that suits us. To-morrow we leave with the children, and never return." "Is what you say true?" asked the widow, in a tone of irritated surprise. "I never told a falsehood." "You do now, to drive me mad." "Why? because the welfare of your children is secured?" "Yes; of the wolfs cubs you would make lambs. The blood of your father, your sister, mine, will not be avenged." "At this moment, do not talk thus." "I have killed--they kill me. We are even." "Mother, repentance." The widow shouted with laughter. "For thirty years I have lived in crime, and to repent for thirty years they give me three days, and death at the end of them. Do you think I have time? No, no; when my head falls, it will gnash its teeth with rage and hatred." "Brother, help--take me from hence; they are coming," murmured Calabash, in a suffocating voice, for the poor creature began to be delirious. "Will you hush?" said the widow, exasperated by the weakness of Calabash, "will you hush? Oh! the wretch! and she _my_ daughter! pah!" "Mother! mother!" cried Martial, tortured by this horrible scene, "why did you send for me?" "Because I thought to give you a heart and revenge: but who has not the one has not the other, coward!" "My mother!" "Coward, I say!" At this moment a tramp of footsteps was heard in the corridor. The veteran looked at his watch, and stood up. The rising sun, dazzling and radiant, shot suddenly a golden beam of light through the grated window of the corridor opposite the door of the dungeon. This door was thrown open, and two keepers appeared, bringing two chairs; then the jailer came, and said to the widow, in an agitated voice, "Madame, it is time." The widow stood up, impassible; Calabash uttered piercing screams. Four men entered. Three of them, roughly clad, held in their hands small coils of very fine but strong cord. The tallest of these four men, neatly dressed in black, wearing a round hat and a white cravat, handed a paper to the jailer. This man was the executioner. The paper was a receipt for two women fit to be guillotined. The executioner took possession of these two of God's creatures; from that time he was answerable.