shriveled and wrinkled that she thought they would think her a poorish sort of diet.  The two men went past the hunchback and walked up to a bed that there was in the great room, and in which they had put the gentleman with the big portmanteau, the one that passed for a negromancer.  The taller man holds up the lantern and takes the gentleman by the feet, and the short one, that had pretended to be drunk, clutches hold of his head and cuts his throat, clean, with one stroke, swish!  Then they leave the head and body lying in its own blood up there, steal the portmanteau, and go downstairs with it.  Here is our woman in a nice fix!  First of all she thinks of slipping out, before any one can suspect it, not knowing that Providence had brought her there to glorify God and to bring down punishment on the murderers.  She was in a great fright, and when one is frightened one thinks of nothing else.  But the woman of the house had asked the two brigands about the hunchback, and that had alarmed them.  So back they came, creeping softly up the wooden staircase.  The poor hunchback curls up in a ball with fright, and she hears them talking about her in whispers.

“‘Kill her, I tell you.’

“‘No need to kill her.’

“‘Kill her!’

“‘No!’

“Then they came in.  The woman, who was no fool, shuts her eyes and pretends to be asleep.  She sets to work to sleep like a child, with her hand on her heart, and takes to breathing like a cherub.  The man opens the lantern and shines the light straight into the eyes of the sleeping old woman—­she does not move an eyelash, she is in such terror for her neck.

“‘She is sleeping like a log; you can see that quite well,’ so says the tall one.

“‘Old women are so cunning!’ answers the short man.  ’I will kill her.  We shall feel easier in our minds.  Besides, we will salt her down to feed the pigs.’

“The old woman hears all this talk, but she does not stir.

“‘Oh! it is all right, she is asleep,’ says the short ruffian, when he saw that the hunchback had not stirred.

“That is how the old woman saved her life.  And she may be fairly called courageous; for it is a fact that there are not many girls here who could have breathed like cherubs while they heard that talk going on about the pigs.  Well, the two brigands set to work to lift up the dead man; they wrap him round in the sheets and chuck him out into the little yard; and the old woman hears the pigs scampering up to eat him, and grunting, hon! hon!

“So when morning comes,” the narrator resumed after a pause, “the woman gets up and goes down, paying a couple of sous for her bed.  She takes up her wallet, goes on just as if nothing had happened, asks for the news of the countryside, and gets away in peace.  She wants to run.  Running is quite out of the question, her legs fail her for fright; and lucky it was for her that she could not run, for this reason.  She had barely gone half a quarter of a league before she sees one of the brigands coming after her, just out of craftiness to make quite sure that she had seen nothing.  She guesses this, and sits herself down on a boulder.