Pagina 398 di 896

"It is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the children

draw water! Who can gossip of an evening, under that shadow!

Under it, have I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as

the sun was going to bed, and looked back from the hill, the

shadow struck across the church, across the mill, across the

prison--seemed to strike across the earth, messieurs, to where

the sky rests upon it!"

The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the

other three, and his finger quivered with the craving that was on

him.

"That's all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to

do), and I walked on, that night and half next day, until I met

(as I was warned I should) this comrade. With him, I came on, now

riding and now walking, through the rest of yesterday and through

last night. And here you see me!"

After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, "Good! You have

acted and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a little,

outside the door?"