The night was dark and stormy. On the Sceaux road a gipsy was braving the tempest, making difficult headway in the teeth of a gale which flapped her long cloak with impeding force, soaked her to the skin, dashed masses of water in her face, plastered streaming locks to her forehead, taking her breath with its suffocating rush. Shielding her mouth with her hand, the gipsy pressed steadily forward.
A church struck eleven slow strokes, borne on the wind. Lashed by the tempest, the gipsy pressed on, muttering as she moved:
"Vagualame told me that he would be at the first milestone beyond the aviation sheds.... I must get there! I will get there!"
It was Bobinette, struggling on in blind obedience to him whom she considered her master, towards the strange meeting-place fixed by the bandit five days ago.
Under her looks of Parisian delicacy, Bobinette had a valiant spirit, a high-strung temperament and a will of steel.... Bobinette wished to reach the appointed trysting-place: she would reach it.
But gipsy Bobinette had her fears. She was painfully impressed by the obscurity of the night--sinister, menacing. From the marshy fields flanking her to right and left unaccustomed sounds, weird noises reached her straining ears through the gusty darkness.
Then what did her master want with her here, and at such an hour?
Never had Bobinette confessed to herself that Vagualame's real identity was unknown to her. What dark personality was hid behind that familiar figure? She asked herself that now, with shuddering apprehension. She had remarked certain coincidences, noted certain details: she divined that this enigmatic accordion player might well be none other than--Fantômas.
Fantômas! That name was it not a frightful symbol of all the crimes, all the atrocities, the monstrous synthesis of unpunished evil?
In her tormented brain those three syllables of sinister intent were sounding like a funeral knell.... At thought of Fantômas and Vagualame co-mingled, Bobinette's terror-filled heart fainted within her. Yet, prey to haunting terrors as she was, Bobinette pressed unfalteringly forward towards what Fate held for her.
One reassuring thought came to hearten her. At every step she took the sequins of her gipsy circlet moved and shook and tinkled on her forehead. They reminded her of the words chanted by the old second-hand dealer when he sold her the string of sequins, words from the celebrated song of the Andalusian gipsies.: