With these words the drunken host began to sing in Spanish, interrupting his song with bumpers, which he threw down his throat, leaning back for the greater ease, while Jacques, still seated, looked at him gloomily by the light of the brazier, and meditated what he should do.

A flash of lightning entered the small window, and filled the room with a sulphurous odor.  A fearful clap immediately followed; the cabin shook; and a beam fell outside.

“Hallo, the house!” cried the drunken man; “the Devil’s among us; and our friends are not come!”

“Sing!” said Jacques, drawing the pack upon which he was close to that of Houmain.

The latter drank to encourage himself, and then continued to sing.

As he ended, he felt his seat totter, and fell backward; Jacques, thus freed from him, sprang toward the door, when it opened, and his head struck against the cold, pale face of the mad-woman.  He recoiled.

“The judge!” she said, as she entered; and she fell prostrate on the cold ground.

Jacques had already passed one foot over her; but another face appeared, livid and surprised-that of a very tall man, enveloped in a cloak covered with snow.  He again recoiled, and laughed a laugh of terror and rage.  It was Laubardemont, followed by armed men; they looked at one another.

“Ah, com-r-a-d-e, yo-a ra-a-scal!” hiccuped Houmain, rising with difficulty; “thou’rt a Royalist.”

But when he saw these two men, who seemed petrified by each other, he became silent, as conscious of his intoxication; and he reeled forward to raise up the madwoman, who was still lying between the judge and the Captain.  The former spoke first.

“Are you not he we have been pursuing?”

“It is he!” said the armed men, with one voice; “the other has escaped.”

Jacques receded to the split planks that formed the tottering wall of the hut; enveloping himself in his cloak, like a bear forced against a tree by the hounds, and, wishing to gain a moment’s respite for reflection, he said, firmly: 

“The first who passes that brazier and the body of that girl is a dead man.”

And he drew a long poniard from his cloak.  At this moment Houmain, kneeling, turned the head of the girl.  Her eyes were closed; he drew her toward the brazier, which lighted up her face.

“Ah, heavens!” cried Laubardemont, forgetting himself in his fright; “Jeanne again!”

“Be calm, my lo-lord,” said Houmain, trying to open the eyelids, which closed again, and to raise her head, which fell back again like wet linen; “be, be—­calm!  Do-n’t ex-cite yourself; she’s dead, decidedly.”

Jacques put his foot on the body as on a barrier, and, looking with a ferocious laugh in the face of Laubardemont, said to him in a low voice: 

“Let me pass, and I will not compromise thee, courtier; I will not tell that she was thy niece, and that I am thy son.”