herself down on a rickety truckle bed, says her prayers, thinks about
her hemp, and is dropping off to sleep. But before she is fairly asleep,
she hears a noise, and in walk two men carrying a lantern, and each man
had a knife in his hand. Then fear came upon her; for in those times,
look you, they used to make pates of human flesh for the seigneurs, who
were very fond of them. But the old woman plucked up heart again, for
she was so thoroughly shriveled and wrinkled that she thought they would
think her a poorish sort of diet. The two men went past the hunchback
and walked up to a bed that there was in the great room, and in which
they had put the gentleman with the big portmanteau, the one that passed
for a _negromancer_. The taller man holds up the lantern and takes
the gentleman by the feet, and the short one, that had pretended to be
drunk, clutches hold of his head and cuts his throat, clean, with one
stroke, swish! Then they leave the head and body lying in its own blood
up there, steal the portmanteau, and go downstairs with it. Here is our
woman in a nice fix! First of all she thinks of slipping out, before any
one can suspect it, not knowing that Providence had brought her there to
glorify God and to bring down punishment on the murderers. She was in a
great fright, and when one is frightened one thinks of nothing else. But
the woman of the house had asked the two brigands about the hunchback,
and that had alarmed them. So back they came, creeping softly up the
wooden staircase. The poor hunchback curls up in a ball with fright, and
she hears them talking about her in whispers.

"'Kill her, I tell you.'

"'No need to kill her.'

"'Kill her!'

"'No!'

"Then they came in. The woman, who was no fool, shuts her eyes and
pretends to be asleep. She sets to work to sleep like a child, with her
hand on her heart, and takes to breathing like a cherub. The man opens
the lantern and shines the light straight into the eyes of the sleeping
old woman--she does not move an eyelash, she is in such terror for her
neck.

"'She is sleeping like a log; you can see that quite well,' so says the
tall one.

"'Old women are so cunning!' answers the short man. 'I will kill her. We
shall feel easier in our minds. Besides, we will salt her down to feed
the pigs.'

"The old woman hears all this talk, but she does not stir.

"'Oh! it is all right, she is asleep,' says the short ruffian, when he
saw that the hunchback had not