For about two hours Trigaud's eyes had roved over the broad expanse of the savanna before and around him. Not a sound had reached his ear, attentively listening, except the monotonous hum of bees and wasps pilfering sweetness from the broom and the wild thyme. The mists which the sun was drawing from the earth began to assume to Trigaud's eyes a variety of rainbow tints, the shimmerings of which, added to the rays of the sun, which were now falling plumb on his tufts of red hair, benumbed his brain; various somniferous combinations were about to plunge him into a siesta, not induced, unfortunately for him, by any meal, when the sudden report of a firearm roused him from his torpor.
He looked in the direction of Saint-Hilaire and saw the white vapor produced by the shot. Next, he saw a man running at full speed, apparently making for the dolmen. With one bound Trigaud was off his pedestal. Bertha, who had resisted sleep, heard the shot and immediately waked up Courte-Joie.
Trigaud took the cripple in his arms and hoisted him above his head till he was fully ten feet off the ground, saying but two words, which, however, needed no commentary:--
"Jean Oullier."
Courte-Joie shaded his eyes with his hand and had no difficulty in recognizing the old Vendéan; but he noticed that instead of making direct for the dolmen, Jean Oullier had taken to the opposite hill and was heading for Montbert. He also observed that instead of running on the slope of the hill, where he might have been sheltered from the eyes of his pursuers, the old huntsman had chosen the most exposed places, keeping in full view of whoever was within three miles of him.
Jean Oullier, he knew, was far too wary to act heedlessly; he must have some good reason for his present behavior; no doubt he was attracting the enemy's attention to himself in order to divert it from the rest of the party. Courte-Joie therefore concluded that the wisest thing for him and his companions to do was to stay in their present shelter and await events, carefully watching, meantime, all that happened.
Whenever intelligence was needed instead of senses, Courte-Joie no longer trusted to Trigaud. He had himself hoisted to the top of the dolmen, although, small as his truncated body was, he thought best not to display it too openly on that pedestal. He therefore lay down flat on his stomach with his face turned in the direction of the hill up which Jean Oullier was proceeding.
Soon, at the very place whence the Vendéan had issued, he saw a soldier, then another, then a third; he counted them up to twenty. They did not seem eager to measure speed with their game; they simply spread over the moor to cut off his retreat in case he attempted to return. These equivocal tactics increased Courte-Joie's watchfulness; for they led him to think that the soldiers had some other object in view than the mere pursuit of the Vendéan. The hill which the latter was mounting ended, about half a mile from the point where Jean Oullier then was, in a sharp point of rocks, at the foot of which was a bog. It was on that spot, no doubt because Jean Oullier was aiming for it, that Courte-Joie's attention was now fixed.
"Hum!" said Trigaud, suddenly.
"What is it?" asked Courte-Joie.