He rose, stood irresolute a moment, and then moved towards his horse. The imp of jealousy made a last leap for his shoulders. Bertrand shook them, and was a free man, breathing in new inspiration for the days to come.
Now Croquart had ordered two men-at-arms to go and cover the bodies of Tinteniac’s esquires, who lay dead together in the middle of the forest road. Bertrand was no hot-headed fool. He knew enough of the Fleming and his men to realize that a mere free lance such as he seemed would be treated to no such courtesy as had been given to Tinteniac. He was worth no ransom. If worsted, the point of a spear or the edge of a sword would give him his quittance in the Loudeac woods.
Bertrand knew, also, that he would have no chance with Croquart and his three men, one against four, and that Croquart would not trouble to engage him singly as he had engaged Tinteniac. For one moment Bertrand thought of returning towards Josselin, in the hope of meeting some of Dubois’s men. But the plan did not please him. He had marked down Croquart as his own stag.
Unhitching his bridle from the bough of the tree, he took his spear, that rested against the trunk, and, making a détour through the woods, bore towards the place where the two esquires lay dead.
Croquart, meanwhile, was preparing to resume his march on Loudeac. He had dressed and bound Tinteniac’s wounds, and lifted that gentleman back to the saddle.
“I take your word, sire, as a knight—and a Breton.”
“Be easy, friend, I have not enough blood in me to give you trouble.”
Croquart turned to hold Tiphaïne’s stirrup. She had ceased her anger of weeping, and her face had the white sternness of one whose courage has cooled from the heat of passion. Croquart’s smile was as powerless as a feeble sun upon the winter of her face. She mounted, took the bridle, and looked into the distance to avoid meeting the Fleming’s eyes.
Croquart and Tête Bois got to horse. The two men who were covering the dead bodies with sods and leaves were to follow the Fleming as soon as their work was done. Croquart placed himself between Tiphaïne and Tinteniac. He had rearmed himself in all his heavy harness. No more courtesies were to be expected from him that day.
They had hardly gone a hundred yards when a cry came stealing through the silence of the woods. It held a moment, quivered, to end in a last up-leap like the last flash of a gutted candle. Croquart reined in and set his hand upon his sword. His face, ugly in repose, grew doubly sinister as he glanced back under the boughs of the trees.