"There is very little wind in those tree tops up there." He shrugged, poled ahead, not apprehensive, yet conscious that Philippa had no business in a town from the vicinity of which such ominous sounds could be heard so distinctly.
Few people were moving on the Ausone road, merely a belated group or two trudging southward. Except for a distant cavalry patrol riding slowly along the quarry road across the river, the country appeared to be empty of military movement. As they advanced upstream, one fact became apparent; the fugitives who had passed through Saïs that morning had not come from the scattered hamlets and cottages along the Récollette. They could see women washing linen along the river banks and hanging out the wash on clotheslines. Old men and children fished tranquilly from the sterns of skiffs pulled up among the rushes; cattle stood knee-deep in the limpid stream under the fringe of trees; a farmer who had cut his wheat and barley had already begun threshing. It was evident that the exodus from the north was not, so far, affecting Ausone.
When their punt glided past the great willow tree where the Impasse d'Alcyon terminated at the river bank, Warner, swinging his pole level, pointed in silence and looked at Philippa. She smiled interrogatively in response.
"That's where Halkett and I landed when we came to find you," he said.
Then she comprehended and the smile faded from her lips.
Around the bend lay the tree-shaded lawn of the Café Biribi. They gazed at it fixedly and in silence, as they shot swiftly past. There was no sign of life there; the beds of cannas and geraniums lay all ablaze in the sun; the windows of the building were closed, the blinds lowered; every gayly-painted rowboat had been pulled up on the landing and turned keel upward. A solitary swan sailed along close inshore, probing the shallows with his brilliant scarlet beak.
Then, as they left the deserted scene of their first meeting, and as the pretty stone bridge of the Place d'Ausone came into sight beyond, spanning the river in a single, silver-grey arch, Warner looked up along the steep and mossy quay wall, and saw, above him, a line sentinel, fully equipped, lounging on the parapet, watching them. Two others paced the bridge.
"Halte là! Au large!" called out the sentinel. "The Pont d'Ausone is mined."
Leaning on his pole and holding the punt against the current, Warner called out:
"Is it permitted to land, soldier?"