more
brutal than that of the provost, "we shall not have far to go."

"Make haste!" said Tristan, "you shall laugh afterwards."

In the meantime, the recluse had not uttered another word since Tristan
had seen her daughter and all hope was lost. She had flung the poor
gypsy, half dead, into the corner of the cellar, and had placed herself
once more at the window with both hands resting on the angle of the sill
like two claws. In this attitude she was seen to cast upon all those
soldiers her glance which had become wild and frantic once more. At the
moment when Rennet Cousin approached her cell, she showed him so savage
a face that he shrank back.

"Monseigneur," he said, returning to the provost, "which am I to take?"

"The young one."

"So much the better, for the old one seemeth difficult."

"Poor little dancer with the goat!" said the old sergeant of the watch.

Rennet Cousin approached the window again. The mother's eyes made his
own droop. He said with a good deal of timidity,--

"Madam"--

She interrupted him in a very low but furious voice,--

"What do you ask?"

"It is not you," he said, "it is the other."

"What other?"

"The young one."

She began to shake her head, crying,--

"There is no one! there is no one! there is no one!"

"Yes, there is!" retorted the hangman, "and you know it well. Let me
take the young one. I have no wish to harm you."

She said, with a strange sneer,--

"Ah! so you have no wish to harm me!"

"Let me have the other, madam; 'tis monsieur the provost who wills it."

She repeated with a look of madness,--

"There is no one here."

"I tell you that there is!" replied the executioner. "We have all seen
that there are two of you."

"Look then!" said the recluse, with a sneer. "Thrust your head through
the window."

The executioner observed the mother's finger-nails and dared not.

"Make haste!" shouted Tristan, who had just ranged his troops in a
circle round the Rat-Hole, and who sat on his horse beside the gallows.

Rennet returned once more to the provost in great embarrassment. He had
flung his rope on the ground, and was twisting his hat between his hands
with an awkward air.

"Monseigneur," he asked, "where am I to enter?"

"By the door."

"There is none."

"By the window."

"'Tis too small."

"Make it larger," said Tristan angrily. "Have you not pickaxes?"

The mother still looked on steadfastly from the depths of her cavern.
She no longe