"Oh, yes!" retorted Baptist. "And we have watered our horses and you have not!"
The man grinned feebly; the others laughed. "Well," he said, "do you hit on something then! You think yourself clever."
Villeneuve bethought him of the prince who set, his guards to race, and, when their horses were spent, galloped away laughing. But he dared not suggest that, though he tingled with anxiety. "Who sees a heron first," said one.
But "Pooh!" with a grin, "we are all liars!" put an end to that.
"Well," said Baptist sulkily, "if we stay here a while longer we shall all lie for nothing, for we shall have the Captain upon us."
Thus spurred a man had an idea that seemed fair. "We've no two horses alike," he said. "Let us pluck a hair from the tail of each. He"--pointing to Charles--"shall draw one with his eyes shut, and whoever is drawn shall stay on guard."
They agreed to this, and Charles, being applied to, consented with a sulky air to play his part. The hairs were plucked, a grey, a chestnut, a bay, a black, and a sorrel; and the prisoner, foreseeing that he would be left with a single trooper, and determined in that case to essay escape, shut his eyes and felt for the five hairs, and selected one. The man drawn was the man who had last had him in charge, and to whose saddle his reins were still attached.
The man cursed his ill-fortune; the others laughed. "All the same," he cried, "if you play me false you'll laugh on the other side of your faces!"
"Tut, tut, Martin!" they jeered in answer. "Have no fear!" And they scarce made a secret of their intention to cheat him.
The four turned, laughing, and plunged into the undergrowth which clothed the hill. Still their course could be traced by the snapping of dry sticks, the scramble of a horse on a steep place, or the scared notes of blackbirds, fleeing low among the bushes. Slowly Martin's eyes followed their progress along the hill, and as his eyes moved, he moved also, foot by foot, through the brook, glaring, listening, and now and then muttering threats in his beard.