"My splendid girl, my charmer of Cadiz! My wonder of the Alhambra, my Moorish maid! My bird of freedom--hand of Charlemagne, your lips are sweet, yes, sweet as one-and-twenty!" His lips grew redder at the thought of the kisses he had taken, his cheek flushed with the thought of those he meant to take; and he laughed greedily as he lowered himself into the flume by a ladder, just under the lever that opened the gates, to begin his inspection.
It was not a perfunctory inspection, for he was a good craftsman, and he had pride in what his workmen did.
"Ah!" It was a sound of dumbfounded amazement, a hoarse cry of horror which was not in tune with the beauty of the morning.
"Ah!" It came from his throat like the groan of a trapped and wounded lion.
George Masson had almost finished his inspection, when he heard a noise behind him.

He turned and looked back.

There stood Jean Jacques with his hand on the lever.

The noise he had heard was the fourteen-foot ladder being dropped, after Jean Jacques had drawn it up softly out of the flume.
"Ah! Nom de Dieu!" George Masson exclaimed again in helpless fury and with horror in his eyes.
By instinct he understood that Carmen's husband knew all.

He realized what Jean Jacques meant to do.