CHAPTER XXXIII ON THE SANDS A man, bearing in his arms the motionless form of a woman, paused later that night in the shadow of a low stone hovel, near the lower gate of the Mount. As he crouched beneath the thatch projecting like the rim of an old hat above him his eyes, eager, fierce, studied the distance he had yet to traverse from the end of the narrow alley, where he had stopped, to the open entrance at the base of the rock to the sands. The goal was not far; but a few moments would have sufficed to reach it; only between him and the point he had so long been striving to attain, an obstacle, or group of obstacles, intervened. Before a bonfire of wreckage of stuff--furniture and household goods--several ragged, dissolute fellows sat with bottles before them, drinking hard and quarreling the while over a number of glittering gems, gold snuff-boxes and trinkets of all kinds. "This bit of ivory for the white stone!" "Add the brooch!" "Not I! Look at the picture! Her ladyship, perhaps!" "They have not found her?" "No; for all the searching! But she is somewhere; can't have escaped from the Mount. And when the drabs and trulls lay hands on her!" "Ay, when!" casting the dice. The man, peering from the alley, hesitated no longer; behind sounded the footsteps of others, and gathering his burden more firmly, he strode boldly forth toward the group and the gate. At his approach, their talk--a jargon of "thieves' Latin" that smacked more of the cabarets of Paris than those of the coast--momentarily ceased; beneath lowering brows, they stared hard. "What have you there, comrade?" said one. "Look and see!" answered the man in a rough tone. "Poor booty! A woman!" quoted another with a harsh laugh. "You're easily pleased. As if wenches were not plentiful enough on other occasions, without wasting time on a night like this, when diamonds and gold are to be had for the searching!" "And silver plates and watches and rare liquors!" cried a third in knaves' _argot_. "Every one, however, to his taste! An you prefer a light-of-love to light such as these have," juggling with the gems, "you but stamp yourself a fool." "You're welcome to your opinion, my friend!" The man with the burden spoke bruskly. "Good night!" "Stay; why such haste? You seem not a bad fellow. Set the wench down. We'll have sight of her, and, perhaps," with coarse expletives, "if she's a pretty face, and a taste for this fiery liquor the old monks laid down, we'll find a gewgaw or two to her liking!" But the man made no answer; was about to pass on, when the speaker noticed for the first time the woman's hand, white and small, hanging limply. "What's this? More jewels?" His exclamation was caught up by the others. "Not so fast, comrade! This puts a different face to the matter. Set down the booty, and," springing to his feet, "we'll see what it's worth."