Putting out his hand to grasp
this real or fantastic being, who was there, he supposed, with no good
intentions, he encountered the soft and rounded figure of a woman.
"The devil take you!" he exclaimed, "if any one else had met you,
you'd have had a ball through your head. What are you doing, and where
are you going, at this time of night? Are you dumb? It certainly is a
woman," he said to himself.
The silence was suspicious, but the stranger broke it by saying, in a
voice which suggested extreme fright, "Ah, my good man, I'm on my way
back from a wake."
"It is the pretended mother of the marquis," thought Corentin. "I'll
see what she's about. Well, go that way, old woman," he replied,
feigning not to recognize her. "Keep to the left if you don't want to
be shot."
He stood quite still; then observing that Madame du Gua was making for
the Papegaut tower, he followed her at a distance with diabolical
caution. During this fatal encounter the Chouans had posted themselves
on the manure towards which Marche-a-Terre had guided them.
"There's the Grande-Garce!" thought Marche-a-Terre, as he rose to his
feet against the tower wall like a bear.
"We are here," he said to her in a low voice.
"Good," she replied, "there's a ladder in the garden of that house
about six feet above the manure; find it, and the Gars is saved.
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