Then the girl saw two men step cautiously from behind corner tents, each at the end of a street running in opposite directions across the camp; they made signs to each other, gazed carefully behind and sideways, then hurried forward and met directly under the pine-tree on its northern side, so that the huge trunk completely concealed them from the camp.
Bissula bent softly, softly downward: it was a man with a helmet and one unarmed; she could not distinguish their features. They began to talk, in whispers, it is true, but the listener understood many words, and she now recognized the speakers by their voices.
"But I tell you, it must be this very day! He has ordered the scribe to come early tomorrow morning, with the seal. He means to change his will--to add a codicil. What good will his death do me, if he first throws the best part of his riches into that wench's lap?"
The other made some reply which the girl did not hear.
"Ha!--she--she can't be reached!" answered the first speaker. "That red-haired witch is under the protection of the fiends of hell."
"How so?"
"Why, one night lately--a deadly terror has seized me ever since when I see the brown beast--the monster's hot, loathsome breath was steaming from her open jaws into my face! She was within a hair's breadth of clutching and squeezing me to death! This very evening--just now--at supper--"
"Hark, what was that," asked the other startled, "up above in the pine-tree? Didn't you hear anything?"
"Pshaw! The night-breeze in the branches!"
"No, no! It was--"