It was a wild and sombre scene even at that hour, with the midday sun shining on the rushing water and drawing the scent out of the pines; but I knew that there was worse to come, and sought desperately for some ruse by which I might at least separate the men. Three were too many; with one I might deal. At last, when I had cudgelled my brain for an hour, and almost resigned myself to a sudden charge on the men single-handed-a last desperate resort-I thought of a plan, dangerous, too, and almost desperate, but which still seemed to promise something. It came of my fingers resting in my pocket on the fragments of the orange sachet, which, without having any particular design in my mind, I had taken care to bring with me. I had torn the sachet into four pieces-four corners. As I played mechanically with them, one of my fingers fitted into one, as into a glove; a second finger into another. And the plan came.
Still, before I could move in it, I had to wait until we stopped to bait the flagging horses, which we did about noon at the head of the valley. Then, pretending to drink from the stream, I managed to secure unseen a handful of pebbles, slipping them into the same pocket with the morsels of stuff. On getting to horse again, I carefully fitted a pebble, not too tightly, into the largest scrap, and made ready for the attempt.
The landlord rode on my left, abreast of me; the other two knaves behind. The road at this stage favoured me, for the valley, which drained the bare uplands that lay between the lower spurs and the base of the real mountains, had become wide and shallow. Here were no trees, and the path was a mere sheep-track covered with short crisp grass, and running sometimes on this bank of the stream and sometimes on that.
I waited until the ruffian beside me turned to speak to the men behind. The moment he did so and his eyes were averted, I slipped out the scrap of satin in which I had placed the pebble, and balancing it carefully on my right thigh as I rode, I flipped it forward with all the strength of my thumb and finger. I meant it to fall a few paces before us in the path, where it could be seen. But alas for my hopes! At the critical moment my horse started, my finger struck the scrap aslant, the pebble flew out, and the bit of stuff fluttered into a whin-bush close to my stirrup-and was lost!
I was bitterly disappointed, for the same thing might happen again, and I had now only three scraps left. But fortune favoured me, by putting it into my neighbour's head to plunge into a hot debate with the shock-headed man on the nature of some animals seen on a distant brow; which he said were izards, while the other maintained that they were common goats. He continued, on this account, to ride with his face turned the other way. I had time to fit another pebble into the second piece of stuff, and sliding it on to my thigh, poised it, and flipped it.
This time my finger struck the tiny missile fairly in the middle, and shot it so far and so truly that it dropped exactly in the path ten paces in front of us. The moment I saw it fall I kicked my neighbour's nag in the ribs; it started, and he, turning in a rage, hit it. The next instant he pulled it almost on to its haunches.
"Saint Gris!" he cried; and sat glaring at the bit of yellow satin, with his face turned purple and his jaw fallen.
"What is it?" I said, staring at him in turn. "What is the matter, fool?"
"Matter?" he blurted out. "Mon Dieu!"
But Clon's excitement surpassed even his. The dumb man no sooner saw what had attracted his comrade's attention, than he uttered an inarticulate and horrible noise, and tumbling off his horse, more like a beast than a man, threw himself bodily on the precious morsel.
The innkeeper was not far behind him. An instant and he was down, too, peering at the thing; and for an instant I thought that they would fight over it. However, though their jealousy was evident, their excitement cooled a little when they discovered that the scrap of stuff was empty; for, fortunately, the pebble had fallen out of it. Still, it threw them into such a fever of eagerness as it was wonderful to witness. They nosed the ground where it had lain, they plucked up the grass and turf, and passed it through their fingers, they ran to and fro like dogs on a trail; and, glancing askance at one another, came back always together to the point of departure. Neither in his jealousy would suffer the other to be there alone.
The shock-headed man and I sat our horses and looked on; he marvelling, and I pretending to marvel. As the two searched up and down the path, we moved a little out of it to give them space; and presently, when all their heads were turned from me, I let a second morsel drop under a gorse-bush. The shock-headed man, by-and-bye, found this, and gave it to Clon; and, as from the circumstances of the first discovery no suspicion attached to me, I ventured to find the third and last scrap myself. I did not pick it up, but I called the innkeeper, and he pounced on it as I have seen a hawk pounce on a chicken.
They hunted for the fourth morsel, but, of course, in vain, and in the end they desisted, and fitted the three they had together; but neither would let his own portion out of his hands, and each looked at the other across the spoil with eyes of suspicion. It was strange to see them in that wide-stretching valley, whence grey boar-backs of hills swelled up into the silence of the snow-it was strange, I say, in that vast solitude to see these two, mere dots on its bosom, circling round one another in fierce forgetfulness of the outside world, glaring and shifting their ground like cocks about to engage, and wholly engrossed-by three scraps of orange-colour, invisible at fifty paces!
At last the innkeeper cried with an oath: "I am going back. This must be known down yonder. Give me your pieces, man, and do you go with Antoine. It will be all right."
But Clon, waving a scrap in either hand and thrusting his ghastly mask into the other's face, shook his head in passionate denial. He could not speak, but he made it clear that if any one went back with the news he was the man to go.
"Nonsense!" the landlord retorted fiercely. "We cannot leave Antoine to go on alone with him. Give me the stuff."
But Clon would not. He had no thought of resigning the credit of the discovery, and I began to think that the two would really come to blows. But there was an alternative, and first one and then the other looked at me. It was a moment of peril, and I knew it. My stratagem might react on myself, and the two, to put an end to this difficulty, agree to put an end to me. But I faced them so coolly and showed so bold a front, and the ground was so open, that the idea took no root. They fell to wrangling again more viciously than before. One tapped his gun and the other his pistols. The landlord scolded, the dumb man gurgled. At last their difference ended as I had hoped it would.
"Very well then, we will both go back!" the innkeeper cried in a rage. "And Antoine must see him on. But the blame be on your head. Do you give the lad your pistols."
Clon took one pistol and gave it to the shock-headed man.
"The other!" the innkeeper said impatiently.
But Clon shook his head with a grim smile, and pointed to the arquebuss.
By a sudden movement the landlord snatched the pistol, and averted Clon's vengeance by placing both it and the gun in the shock-headed man's hands. "There!" he said, addressing the latter, "now can you do? If Monsieur tries to escape or turn back, shoot him! But four hours' riding should bring you to the Roca Blanca. You will find the men there, and will have no more to do with it."
Antoine did not see things quite in that light, however. He looked at me, and then at the wild track in front of us; and he muttered an oath and said he would die if he would. But the landlord, who was in a frenzy of impatience, drew him aside and talked to him, and in the end seemed to persuade him; for in a few minutes the matter was settled. Antoine came back and said sullenly, "Forward, Monsieur," the two others stood on one side, I shrugged my shoulders and kicked up my horse, and in a twinkling we two were riding on together-man to man. I turned once or twice to see what those we had left behind were doing, and always found them standing in apparent debate; but my guard showed so much jealousy of these movements that I presently shrugged my shoulders again and desisted.
I had racked my brains to bring about this state of things. But, strange to say, now I had succeeded, I found it less satisfactory than I had hoped. I had reduced the odds and got rid of my most dangerous antagonists; but Antoine, left to himself, proved to be as full of suspicion