"Have you felt carefully?"
"I have felt and felt over again, everywhere. Perhaps during this night's battle, some foxy Crusader, like a man of experience, have seized the throat of this Saracen at the moment when he expired and may thus have caused him to spit out the gold he was hiding in his mouth. Provided that dog did not swallow it all down."
"The scamp was capable of doing that. Feel about in his throat. After that we shall sound the chest and bowels." So said, so done. The two monsters put the corpse through a shocking butchery. Finally their ferocious cupidity was satisfied. After a series of revolting profanations, they withdrew from the bleeding intestines of the corpse three diamonds, a ruby and five besans of gold, small thick pieces but barely the size of a denier. While the two vagabonds were finishing their ghoulish work, black clouds of thick and nauseous smoke rose from a pyre, started close by, by the other vagabonds, with green branches of turpentine tree. These fellows, instead of disemboweling the corpses, burned them, in order to look among the ashes for the gold and precious stones which the Saracens might have swallowed. These monstrosities having been gone through, the vagabonds proceeded to the neighboring spring where they washed their bloody bodies, and donned their clothes again, or decked themselves with the spoils of the Saracens. The booty was then divided—clothes, arms, turbans, shoes—and they wended their steps towards the gate of Agra. At the moment of entering the city, the King of the Vagabonds, mounting a heap of ruins, said to his men, who gathered around him: "Vagabonds, my sons and beloved subjects! We are about to enter Marhala, with booty on back and bysantins in pocket. I expect, I will it, I order it, in the name of wine, dice and wenches, that, before leaving Marhala, we shall have become again as beggarly as the vagabonds that we are! Never forget our rule: 'A true vagabond, twenty-four hours after a pillage, must have nothing left but his skin and his knife.' He who keeps a denier becomes cold to the quarry. He is expelled from my kingdom!"
"Yes, yes! Long live our King! Three cheers for wine, dice and wenches!" responded the bandits. "The devil take the vagabond, who, rich to-day, keeps for the morrow aught but his skin and his knife! Long live our great King, Corentin the Gibbet-cheater!"
And the savage troop marched towards the gate of Agra and entered the city of Marhala shouting and singing: "Glory to the brave Crusaders!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE MARKET-PLACE OF MARHALA.
Luckily disentangled from the fury of the guests of the Duke of Aquitaine by the nocturnal attack of the Saracens, Fergan the Quarryman had profited by the confusion to escape from the Emir's palace with Joan and Colombaik. While the Crusaders were hurrying to the ramparts of the gate of Agra, the serf turned his steps with wife and child, far away from the spot of the battle. Before sunrise, quiet reigned again in Marhala. Descrying one of those numerous taverns, that generally sprang up after the capture of a city, and were set up in some Saracen house by the camp-followers of the army, Fergan stepped in. To the great astonishment of Joan, he pulled out of his belt a gold piece, which he exchanged with the tavern-keeper for silver coin, to pay for his lodging. Once more alone with his family, the quarryman could give a loose to his tender feelings and relate to them how, after being separated from them by the sand-spout, he found himself half buried under the sand, and losing consciousness. In the darkness of the night he was shaken out of his lethargy by a sharp scratch on his shoulder. It was a hyena, that, pawing up the sand under which he lay, prepared to devour him, taking him for dead, but instantly fled seeing him sit up. Thus, delivered from a double danger, the serf had wandered about during dark, amidst the mournful yelpings of the wild beasts at their quarry over the corpses that they dug up. At dawn he saw, already half devoured, the remains of Neroweg VI.
After vainly searching for Joan and his child, Fergan considered them lost forever, and followed the route marked out by the human bones. At the end of several hours' marching, he came across the corpse of some seigneur, to judge by the richness of his clothes, torn to shreds by the beasts of prey. Among the tatters was an embroidered purse full of gold. He appropriated it without scruple, and was soon joined by a troop of travelers bound for Marhala. He journeyed in their company. Upon his arrival in the city, and learning that several other travelers who escaped the disaster of the sand-spout had come in ahead of him, he inquired after a deformed woman with a child. A beggar, who had accidentally seen Joan and her son enter the palace of the Emir, gave him the information, and he was enabled to arrive in time to wrest them from the danger they were just threatened with.
After a recital of his adventures, and leaving his wife and Colombaik in the tavern, Fergan went out at sunrise to purchase some clothing at the market-place, where booty was constantly sold at auction. Fearing to be met by some of the guests of the Duke of Aquitaine, the serf had smeared soot mixed with grease over his face. Rendered thus unrecognizable, he entered the market-place. Instead, however, of finding the place occupied by traffickers in booty, he saw a large gang of men hastily engaged in the construction of a pyre under the overseership of several prelates. A cordon of soldiers, placed at a distance from the pyre, kept the inquisitive from drawing too near. Fergan had just elbowed himself to the front of the mob, when a deacon, clad in black, said aloud: "Are there among you any strong men who wish to earn two deniers, and help finish the pyre quickly? They shall be paid the moment the work is done."
"I shall help, if wanted," answered Fergan. Two deniers were worth earning. They would eke out his treasury.