Tristan, whose face became more sinister with every moment, addressed the recluse,-"What have you to say to that?"
She tried to make head against this new incident, "That I do not know, monseigneur; that I may have been mistaken. I believe, in fact, that she crossed the water."
"That is in the opposite direction," said the provost, "and it is not very likely that she would wish to re-enter the city, where she was being pursued. You are lying, old woman."
"And then," added the first soldier, "there is no boat either on this side of the stream or on the other."
"She swam across," replied the recluse, defending her ground foot by foot.
"Do women swim?" said the soldier.
"~Tête Dieu~! old woman! You are lying!" repeated Tristan angrily. "I have a good mind to abandon that sorceress and take you. A quarter of an hour of torture will, perchance, draw the truth from your throat. Come! You are to follow us."
She seized on these words with avidity.
"As you please, monseigneur. Do it. Do it. Torture. I am willing. Take me away. Quick, quick! let us set out at once!--During that time," she said to herself, "my daughter will make her escape."
"'S death!" said the provost, "what an appetite for the rack! I understand not this madwoman at all."
An old, gray-haired sergeant of the guard stepped out of the ranks, and addressing the provost,-"Mad in sooth, monseigneur. If she released the gypsy, it was not her fault, for she loves not the gypsies. I have been of the watch these fifteen years, and I hear her every evening cursing the Bohemian women with endless imprecations. If the one of whom we are in pursuit is, as I suppose, the little dancer with the goat, she detests that one above all the rest."
Gudule made an effort and said,-"That one above all."
The unanimous testimony of the men of the watch confirmed the old sergeant's words to the provost. Tristan l'Hermite, in despair at extracting anything from the recluse, turned his back on her, and with unspeakable anxiety she beheld him direct his course slowly towards his horse.
"Come!" he said, between his teeth, "March on! let us set out again on the quest. I shall not sleep until that gypsy is hanged."
But he still hesitated for some time before mounting his horse. Gudule palpitated between life and death, as she beheld him cast about the Place that uneasy look of a hunting dog which instinctively feels that the lair of the beast is close to him, and is loath to go away. At length he shook his head and leaped into his saddle. Gudule's horribly compressed heart now dilated, and she said in a low voice, as she cast a glance at her daughter, whom she had not ventured to look at while they were there, "Saved!"