The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Iv Part 13

"No one knows how you live. You are vagabondising on the water; you have the reputation of a bad fellow; you dwell with us, and who will believe that you are ignorant of our thefts and receivings?"

"I will prove the contrary."

"We will accuse you as our accomplice."

"Accuse me! And why?"

"To pay you off for staying amongst us against our will."

"Just now you tried to make me frightened in one way, now you are trying another tack. But it won't do. I will prove that I never robbed. I remain."

"Ah! You remain? Listen then, again! Do you remember last year a person who pa.s.sed the Christmas night here?"

"Christmas night?" said Martial, trying to recall his memory.

"Try and remember,--try!"

"I do not recollect."

"Don't you recollect that Bras Rouge brought here in the evening a well-dressed man, who was desirous of concealing himself?"

"Yes, now I remember. I went up to bed and left him taking his supper with you. He pa.s.sed the night here, and, before daybreak, Nicholas took him to St. Ouen."

"You are sure Nicholas took him to St. Ouen?"

"You told me so next morning."

"On Christmas night you were here?"

"Yes; and what of that?"

"Why, that night this man, who had a good deal of money about him, was murdered in this house."

"Mur--! He! Here?"

"And robbed and buried by the little wood-pile."

"It is not true!" cried Martial, becoming pale with horror, and unable to believe in this fresh crime of his family. "You mean to frighten me.

Once more, it is not true?"

"Ask Francois what he saw this morning in the wood-pile."

"Francois! And what did he see?"

"A man's foot sticking out of the ground. Take a lantern; go and convince your eyes!"

"No," said Martial, wiping his brow, which had burst forth in a cold sweat. "No, I do not believe you. You say it to--"

"To prove to you that, if you remain here in spite of us, you risk every moment being apprehended as an accomplice in robbery and murder. You were here on Christmas night, and we shall declare that you helped us to do this job. How will you prove the contrary?"

"Merciless wretch!" said Martial, hiding his face in his hands.

"Now will you go?" said the widow, with a devilish smile.

Martial was overwhelmed. He, unfortunately, could not doubt what his mother had said to him. The wandering life he led, his dwelling with so criminal a family, must induce the most horrible suspicions of him, and these suspicions would be converted into certainty in the eyes of justice, if his mother, brother, and sister declared him to be their accomplice. The widow was rejoiced at the depression of her son:

"You have one means of getting out of the difficulty: denounce us!"

"I ought, but I will not; and you know that right well."

"That is why I have told you all this. Now, will you go?"

Martial, wis.h.i.+ng to soften this hag, said to her, in a subdued voice:

"Mother, I do not believe you are capable of this murder!"

"As you please; but go!"

"I will go on one condition."

"No condition at all!"

"You shall put the children apprentices somewhere in the country."

"They shall remain here!"

"But, mother, when you have made them like Nicholas, Calabash, Ambroise, my father,--what good will that be to you?"

"To make good 'jobs' by their a.s.sistance. We are not too many now.

Calabash will remain here with me to keep the cabaret. Nicholas is alone. Once properly instructed, Francois and Amandine will help him.

They have already been pelted with stones,--young as they are,--and they must revenge themselves!"

"Mother, you love Calabash and Nicholas, don't you?"

"Well, if I do, what then?"

"Suppose the children imitate them, and their crimes are detected?"

"Well, what then?"

"They will come to the scaffold, like my father."

"What then? What then?"

"And does not their probable fate make you tremble?"

"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!"