Evarra and some others of the women were there, Zirriloë and the two keepers beginning their daily turns, and Ravenutzi, sitting with his long knees drawn up under his clasped hands. Somewhere out of sight the men were holding council on a matter they had not seen fit to speak to us about. We had scarcely settled ourselves on the warm leaf-drift when one of them came to the head of the Hollow and shouted for Noche. There were so many of us about, the old man could have safely left the Ward but it seemed to him scarcely courtesy to do so with her Wardship yet so new. He glanced around through the smother of the fog and found not another man who could be spared to that duty. Ravenutzi, with his chin upon his knees, and his velvety opaque eyes looked idly at nothing, but was aware of the old man’s difficulty. Noche clapped him heavily on the shoulder.
“Hey, smith,” he said, “will you take a watch for me? I am wanted.”
At this the man who leaned to us dimly from the rim of the Hollow gave a grunt.
“What,” he said, “will you set the Far-Folk to watch a Ward? These are gentle times.”
“Why, he is as gray as I am, and twice as wrinkled,” answered Noche, mightily disconcerted. “Would you have him come to the Council instead?”
The other laughed shortly.
“No, not to the Council, though I daresay it will come to that yet.”
He released the young tree upon which he leaned, which sprang back with a crackling sound. From his silence Noche drew consent to his half-jesting proposal and, smiling embarrassedly, like a chidden child, swung his great body up by the trunk of a leaning oak and disappeared behind the smoky fog. By such intimations we knew there was something going forward among the men, but we did not know how much of this the Ward, who was most involved by it, surmised. She might have guessed from our not referring to these mysterious comings and goings that it concerned the keeping of the Treasure. She grew uneasy, started at sounds, would have Trastevera hold her hand, was in need of stroking and reassuring.
The fog increased, hurrying and turning upon itself. Runnels of cooler air began to pour through it, curling back the parted films against the trees. Now and then one of these air-streams, deflected by the rim of the Hollow, would rush up its outer slope, blowing leaves and dust like a fountain, and, subsiding, leave us more sensible of warmth and ease, in the thick leaf litter below the oaks.
Ravenutzi came over to Trastevera, who sat holding the Ward’s hand, and stretched himself at her feet, smiling up at her his fawn’s smile. He held up his hand between him and the pale smear of sunlight with one of those slight, meaningful gestures so natural to him that it served as a more delicate sort of speech: “Surely it seemed to say, to-day not even I can cast a shadow?”