CHAPTER IV
The Mink has come to the bright sun's light,
His pick is lifted high;
He hears the gentry's whooping yell,
And sees them gallop by.
"Now all too long we've felt the yoke,
And cringed and fawned and died!
'Tis time we turned upon the squire,
To skin his rotten hide!"
—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
Revel was sitting beside the hole in the wall, now filled with rocks, of course; he had replaced the four small guns in his belt and found, by breaking open the chest they'd lain on, a number of boxes of ammunition, with which he'd stuffed his pockets. Experiment had shown him how to load, and tradition of the ruck told him that to shoot, one pointed the end at something (or someone, he told himself grimly) and pulled the small curved projection. The woman should have helped him, but she was sulking in a corner, weeping. She had not wept an hour before!
He wondered if he were the first rucker to hold a gun. Surely the first to have four such tiny weapons, at least.
He heard voices from beyond the wall, filtering in, oddly distorted, through the air spaces between rocks. That was Jerran.
"Yes, he came down here, and threatened me with his pick all dripping yellow, said he'd killed a lot of gods. Crazy, that's what he was!" Jerran's voice broke, a neat bit of acting. "Sure there's an emotion trail! You think I wasn't scared of that maniac? Wasn't he excited? He stayed here a minute and then left again."