“How was he armed?”
“Rusty harness that had been oiled and looked black.”
“And both of you ran away—he from you, and you from him.”
“Yes, captain.”
Croquart laughed, and turned again towards Loudeac.
“You must have looked fiercer than you are, fool, or else your brother coward has stopped behind to take the dead men’s rings.”
The free lance accepted the explanation. As a matter of fact, he had taken the dead men’s rings himself, but he did not trouble to tell Croquart so.
XXIX
The thrushes were singing on the glimmering spires of the oaks as the crimson banner of the sunset waved to pale gold. In the deepening azure of the east the moon had lost the filmy thinness of a cloud and stood out in splendor over the black hills and the valleys faint with mist. Night came, and with it the bent figures of Croquart’s men, gathering sticks and kicking leaves together to make a fire.
The very brilliance of the night made the woods cold, and Tinteniac, stiff with his wounds, sat propped against a tree, trying to pretend that he was neither in pain nor cold. Tiphaïne stood near him, her eyes seeming to catch the melancholy of the dying afterglow.