The fellow had seen her stretch out her hand towards Tinteniac, and the words warned her that the Gascon was not to be cajoled. His strut was independent and alert as he turned his back on her abruptly and resumed his marching to and fro.
Tiphaïne lay down on the bed, so that, though her face was hidden from Bertrand, he could see the glitter of her hair. There was the length of a sword between her and Tinteniac, three feet of flowering broom between the green cloak and the gray. Bertrand in his heart thanked God that he could see her so, separate, untouched under the moon. He could not have looked at Tiphaïne if she had lain wrapped in Tinteniac’s arms. Twice he saw her lift her head and look at Croquart and the rest. An hour passed before weariness seemed to overpower distrust, and her stillness showed him that she was asleep.
Tête Bois, tired of pacing to and fro, had come to a halt some ten paces from the fire, and now leaned heavily upon his spear. The Gascon was amusing himself by calculating how far a thousand crowns would go to making him the master of a troop of horse. The pieces kept up a fantastic dance before his eyes. He handled them lovingly in anticipation, letting them slip through his fingers in glittering showers, pouring them upon a table and listening to the joyous clangor of the metal. The moon was but a great crown-piece so far as Tête Bois was concerned. He took off the ring Croquart had given him as a pledge, and held it out towards the fire to watch the flashing of the stones.
Unfortunately for Tête Bois, greed dulled the keenness of his senses, and he neither saw nor heard the stealthy and sinuous moving of a black shape across the moonlit grass. The Gascon might have swallowed his thousand crowns for supper to judge by the nightmare that leaped on him out of the mists of the silent woods.
Dawn came, and Croquart the Fleming was the first to wake. He yawned, stretched himself, and sat up sleepily, his red face suffused, his surcoat wet with the heavy dew. Gray mist hung everywhere over the forest, though in the east there was a faint flush of rose and of gold. The birds were piping in the thickets. Tinteniac and the lady were still asleep.
Croquart smiled at them as a farmer might smile over the fatness of two prize beasts. He scrambled up and looked round him for Tête Bois, thinking that the Gascon might have gone to cut fodder for the horses. The bow-legged paladin was nowhere to be seen. The watch-fire was out, though the embers still steamed in the cold air of the morning.
“Hallo, there, Tête Bois!”
The deep voice, resonant from the Fleming’s chest, woke echoes in the woods and silenced the birds singing in the thickets. Harduin, the second free lance, sat up and rubbed his eyes like a cat pawing its face. Tinteniac turned from sleep to find his wounds stiff and aching under the sodden bandages. Tiphaïne, propped upon one elbow, her hair falling down to touch the flowering broom, saw Croquart striding to and fro, flourishing a stick, restless and impatient.
“Tête Bois, rascal, hallo!”
A few rabbits scurried down the misty glades, and a couple of partridges went “burring” into cover. The Fleming’s voice brought back nothing.