"Doubtless, doubtless," said Scarlett, dryly, "yet it would astonish me mightily if even that would satisfy your Mistress Kate of the Lashes—aye, or in troth if such extreme continence greatly pleasures the lass herself!"
To this Wat disdained any answer, but went on piling the sand and setting the square stones in order.
Presently the Little Marie came running very fast along the bottom of the dells, which hereabouts wimpled mazily in and out with nooks and cunning passages everywhere, so that they constituted the excellentest places in the world for playing hide-and-seek. Taking both her hands, which she stretched up to him, Wat pulled the girl lightly over the new defences, and when she was a little recovered from her race, she told them that the enemy could be seen scouting by twos and threes along the edge of the forest, and even venturing a little way towards them into the sandy waste of the dunes. But they had not as yet found the horses, nor begun to explore the sandy hollows where an ambush might lie hidden behind every ridge.
"It is Haxo the Bull who leads them," she said, "for the others are none so keen on the work. But he goes among them vaunting and prating of the brave rewards which his master will give, and how the State also will pay largely for the capture of the traitor and prison-breaker."
"How near by did you see him?" asked Wat.
"He was within twenty paces of me as I lay behind a bush of broom," she said, "and had it not been for the men who were with him, and the fear that they might have marked me down as I ran, I had given him as good as I gave his master."
And with the utmost calmness the Little Marie unslung the dags or horse-pistols from her side, and took out the long keen dagger with which she had wounded Barra as he mounted at his own door to ride after his prisoner.
So, perched on this shadeless shelter they waited hour after hour, while the sun beat pitilessly down on them. The heat grew sullenly oppressive. A dizzy, glimmering haze quivered over the sand-hills, and made it difficult to see clearly more than a few hundred yards in any direction.
Wat and Scarlett desired the girl to rest a while under the shadow of the rude hut in the corner.
