"Make haste!" shouted Tristan, who had just ranged his troops in a circle round the Rat-Hole, and who sat on his horse beside the gallows.
Henriet returned once more to the provost in great embarrassment. He had flung his rope on the ground, and was twisting his hat between his hands with an awkward air.
"Monseigneur," he asked, "where am I to enter?"
"By the door."
"There is none."
"By the window."
"'Tis too small."
"Make it larger," said Tristan angrily. "Have you not pickaxes?"
The mother still looked on steadfastly from the depths of her cavern. She no longer hoped for anything, she no longer knew what she wished, except that she did not wish them to take her daughter.
Henriet Cousin went in search of the chest of tools for the night man, under the shed of the Pillar-House. He drew from it also the double ladder, which he immediately set up against the gallows. Five or six of the provost's men armed themselves with picks and crowbars, and Tristan betook himself, in company with them, towards the window.
"Old woman," said the provost, in a severe tone, "deliver up to us that girl quietly."
She looked at him like one who does not understand.
"Tête Dieu!" continued Tristan, "why do you try to prevent this sorceress being hung as it pleases the king?"
The wretched woman began to laugh in her wild way.
"Why? She is my daughter."
The tone in which she pronounced these words made even Henriet Cousin shudder.
"I am sorry for that," said the provost, "but it is the king's good pleasure."
She cried, redoubling her terrible laugh,—
"What is your king to me? I tell you that she is my daughter!"
"Pierce the wall," said Tristan.
