"The dog-star is white," he said didactically. "In my schooldays I used to read in the Latin tongue that it was red!"
But by their interest in such a matter the Sparhawk knew that they had been speaking of far other things than stars before he burst open the door. For little George the Hussite pulled his pandour moustaches and muttered, "A plague on the dog-star and the foul Latin tongue. They are only fit for the gabble of fat-fed monks. Moreover, you do not see it now, at any rate. For me, I would I were back under the Bohemian pinetrees, where the very wine smacks of resin, and where there is a sheep (your own or another's, it matters not greatly) tied at every true Hussite's door."
"What is this?" cried the Sparhawk. "Do not deceive me. You were none of you talking of stars when I came up the stairs. For I heard Peter Balta's voice say, 'By Heaven! it must come to it, and soon!' And you Hussite George, answered him, 'Six days will settle it.' What do you keep from me? Out with it? Speak up, like three good little men!"
It was Alt Pikker who first found words to answer.
"We spoke indeed of the stars, and said it was six days till the moon should be gone, and that the time would then be ripe for a sally by the—by the—Plassenburg Gate!"
"Pshaw!" cried the Sparhawk. "Lie to your father confessor, not to me. I am not a purblind fool. I have ears, long enough, it is true, but at least they answer to hear withal. You spoke of the wells, I tell you; I saw your heads move apart as I entered; and then, forsooth, that dotard Alt Pikker (who ran away in his youth from a monk's cloister-school with the nun that taught them stocking-mending) must needs furbish up some scraps of Latin and begin to prate about dog-stars red and dog-stars white. Faugh! Open your mouths like men, set truthful hearts behind them, and let me hear the worst!"
Nevertheless the three captains of Kernsberg were silent awhile, for heaviness was upon their souls. Then Peter Balta blurted out, "God help us! There is but ten days more provender in the city, the river is turned, and the wells are almost dried up!"
After this the Sparhawk sat awhile on the low window seat, watching the twinkling fires of the Muscovites and listening to the hum of the town beneath the Castle—all now sullen and subdued, no merry hucksters chaffering about the church porches, no loitering lads and lasses linking arms and bartering kisses in the dusky corners of the linen market, no clattering of hammers in the armourers' bazaar—a muffled buzzing only, as of men talking low to themselves of bitter memories and yet dismaller expectations.
"I have it!" said the Sparhawk at last, his eyes on the misty plain of night, with its twinkling pin-points of fire which were the watch-fires of the enemy.
The three men stirred a little to indicate attention, but did not speak.