Now Resolution sat in the mouth of the small cave I have mentioned and I noticed he had slipped his right hand behind him and sat thus, very still, his gaze on the dying fire like one hearkening very eagerly for distant sounds, wherefore I did the like and thus, from somewhere amid the shadowy thickets, I heard Tressady sing again that evil song of his:
"Two by the knife did lose their life
And three the bullet took O.
But three times three died plaguily
A-wriggling—"
The singing ended suddenly and indescribably in a sound that was neither cry nor groan nor choke, yet something of each and very ghastly to be heard.
"What was yon!" cried Mings, starting and blinking sleep from his eyes to peer towards those gloomy thickets.
"What should it be but Captain Jo!" said Resolution; and now I saw his right hand, hid no longer, grasped a pistol levelled across his knees. "Sit still, all on ye," he commanded. "Let a man move a leg and that man's dead! Mark now what saith Davy. 'He hath graven and digged a pit and is fallen himself into the destruction he made for others. For his travail shall come upon his own head and his wickedness fall on his own pate.'"
"Nay, look'ee," says Mings, wiping sweat from him, "nay, but I heard somewhat—aye, I did, an unchancy sound—"
"Peace, Abnegation, peace!" quoth Resolution. "Mew not and hark to the words o' Davy: 'The Lord is known to execute judgment, the ungodly is trapped in the work of his own hands'—"
"Nay, but," says Mings, pointing. "See—who comes yonder?"
And now we saw Joanna, a dark figure against the splendour of the moon, walking daintily, as was her wont, and as she came she falls a-singing that same evil song I had heard long ago:
"There's a fine Spanish dame
And Joanna's her name
Shall follow wherever ye go
Till your black heart shall feel
Your own cursed steel—"