He threw his head back with a great intake of his breath.
“Content,” was all he answered.
From the turret window overhead Hopart and Guicheaux had drawn back with curiously stolid and solemn faces. It was as though each of these ragged sworders were attempting to disavow any trace of feeling by assuming a staring obtuseness that scorned anything so mawkish as sympathy with Bertrand and the lady. Hopart yawned behind his hand, looking at his comrade the while out of the corners of his slits of eyes.
“Borrowed that grease-pot, brother?” he asked, abruptly, as though fixing on a sufficiently unemotional topic.
Guicheaux stared. He was not without sentiment.
“Grease-pot?”
“For the captain’s stirrup leathers; they’re stiff as boards. I told you to get it from the cook, eh?”
“Wipe them round your neck, brother,” said the thin man; “ ’twill serve.”
Hopart yawned again, and glanced reflectively towards his stomach.
“Honest service once more,” he said, with a fat and complacent sigh; “a roof over a man’s head, and clean straw to lie in; good food and plenty. Brother, I have pricked two holes to let out my belt.”