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The man summoned stepped towards the sergeant, and quietly submitted to being taken by the arm, for his hands were fastened. Bouzille winked knowingly at the gendarme, now his sole remaining confidant, and remarked with satisfaction: "Good luck! We are getting on to-day!
When at length he got rid of Bouzille and his exasperating garrulity, the green man resumed his conversation with his friend with the guitar. "It's rather odd that he hasn't a trace of accent," the latter remarked. "Oh, it's nothing for a fellow like Gurn to speak French like a Frenchman," said the green man in a low tone; then he stopped nervously.
M'sieu Dollon, too: whenever he has an old pair of shoes that are worn out, well, those are mine; and a crust of bread is what nobody ever refuses." The cook hesitated, touched by the recollections evoked by the poor tramp; she looked at the gendarme for a sign of encouragement. Morand shrugged his shoulders and turned a patronising gaze on Bouzille. "Give him something, if you like, Mme. Louise.
Bouzille had fished out a corpse! It was a ghastly sight: the body of a very young man, almost a boy, with long, slender limbs; the face was so horribly swollen and torn as to be shapeless. One leg was almost entirely torn from the trunk. Through rents in the clothing strips of flesh were trailing, blue and discoloured by their long immersion in the water.
"He's coming along with Bouzille." "Good! Just fancy if Bouzille had tried to get through here with his train! There are some people about, eh?" Two men passed the landlord of the market inn just then. "Come along," said one of them, and as the other caught him up, Juve added: "Didn't you recognise those fellows?" "No," said Fandor. Juve told him the names of the men whom they had passed.
While he was chattering like this Bouzille had finished the job set him by mother Chiquard, who meanwhile had peeled some potatoes and poured the soup on the bread. He wiped his brow, and seeing the brimming pot, gave a meaning wink and licked his tongue. "I'll make the fire up, mother Chiquard; I'm getting jolly hungry." "So you ought to be, at half-past eleven," the old woman replied.
"If it isn't miserable to steal my rabbit, this is the finest weather that ever I saw!" "You make a lot of fuss about a trifle," the tramp protested, "especially since you will be a lot the better by the arrangement I'm going to suggest." The notion calmed mother Chiquard a little, and she sat down on a form, while Bouzille took a seat upon the table. "What do you mean?" the old woman enquired.
The green man did not answer; he affected to be engrossed in a most serious conversation with the friend he had brought with him into the supper room, a shabby individual who carried a guitar. But Bouzille was not to be put off, and suddenly he exclaimed, with perfect indifference to what his neighbours might think: "I know: you are the tramp who was arrested with me down there in Lot!
To all her enquiries Bouzille answered with the same delighted cry, "I have earned twenty-five francs," too intent on bringing his fishing job to a successful issue even to turn round. A few minutes later he emerged dripping from the water, towing a large bundle to the safety of the bank. Mother Chiquard drew nearer, greatly interested, and then recoiled with a shriek of horror.
He stood up and addressed mother Chiquard who, white as a sheet, was watching him in silence. "I see what it is: he must have got caught in some mill wheel: that's what has cut him up like that." Mother Chiquard shook her head uneasily. "Suppose it was a murder! That would be an ugly business!" "It's no good my looking at him any more," said Bouzille.
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