"That fate will be mine, neither better nor worse. I rob, they rob; I kill, they kill. Whoever takes the mother will take the young ones; we will not leave each other. If our heads fall, theirs will fall in the same basket, and we shall all take leave at once! We will not retreat! You are the only coward in the family, and we drive you from us!" "But the children,--the children!" "The children will grow up, and, but for you, they would have been quite formed already. Francois is almost ready, and, when you are gone, Amandine will make up for lost time." "Mother, I entreat of you, consent to having the children sent away from here, and put in apprenticeship at a distance." "I tell you that they are in apprenticeship here!" The felon's widow uttered these last words so immovably that Martial lost all hope of mollifying this soul of bronze. "Since it is so," he replied, "hear me in my turn, mother,--I remain!" "Ha! ha!" "Not in this house. I shall be assassinated by Nicholas, or poisoned by Calabash. But, as I have no means of lodging elsewhere, I and the children will occupy the hovel at the end of the island; the door of that is strong, and I will make it still more secure. Once there, I will barricade myself, and, with my gun, my stick, and my dog, I am afraid of no one. To-morrow morning I will take the children with me. During the day they will be with me, either in my boat or elsewhere; and, at night, they shall sleep near me in the hovel. We can live on the fish I catch until I find some means of placing them, and find it I will." "Oh! That's it, is it?" "Neither you, nor my brother, nor Calabash can prevent this, can you? If your robberies and murders are discovered during my abode on the island, so much the worse; but I'll chance it. I will declare that I came back and remained here in consequence of the children, to prevent them from becoming infamous. They will decide. The children shall not remain another day in this abode; and I defy you and your gang to drive me from this island!" The widow knew Martial's resolution, and the children, who loved their eldest brother as much as they feared her, would certainly follow him unhesitatingly whenever and wherever he called them. As to himself, well armed and most determined, always on his guard, in his boat during the day, and secure and barricaded in the hovel on the island at night, he had nothing to fear from the malevolence of his family.