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, wishing 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 assistance. 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!"

"But the children,--the children!"

"The children will grow up, and, but for you, they would have been quite
formed already. Francois is almost ready, and, when you are gone,
Amandine will make up for lost time."

"Mother, I entreat of you, consent to having the children sent away from
here, and put in apprenticeship at a distance."

"I tell you that they are in apprenticeship her