Bertrand kept watch in his black harness under the apple-tree, knowing that his time would come when Croquart should find him there, an enemy in Harduin’s place. Whether it was the last night-watch he would ever keep, Bertrand du Guesclin could not tell. He knew Croquart’s great strength and the little mercy he might expect from him; he knew that he was to match himself against a man who had never taken a beating in single combat. Bertrand put the chances of victory and defeat beyond the pale of thought. He was to fight Croquart for his head and for the two prisoners pent up in the ruined house. For his own life Bertrand had no particular greed. He would kill Croquart or be killed himself.

Cool, calm-eyed, firm at the mouth, he watched the night pass and the dawn come up out of the broadening east. He saw the color kindle on the apple-trees, the wet grass flash and glitter at his feet, the dim woods smoking with their silvery mists. He heard the birds begin in the great orchard, thrush and robin, blackbird and starling, piping and chattering as the sky grew bright.

“Bide by it! bide by it!” sang a thrush in the tree above his head.

“Thanks, my brown fellow,” he said, with a grim smile; “wait and see whether Bertrand du Guesclin runs away.”

He stretched his arms and the muscles of his chest and shoulders, tossing his sword from hand to hand. The flash of the steel seemed reflected to him for the moment from the narrow window of the solar in the western gable. Bertrand stood still. He had seen the white oval of a face framed by the inward darkness of the room, as though some one watched him without wishing to be seen. He knew that it was TiphaÏne by the faint gleam of her coiled hair. How coldly she would be looking at him with those eyes of hers, taking him for Croquart’s man, a shabby fellow who fought for hire. His carcass and his destiny could concern her little.

“Hallo, a whistle! Now, Brother Croquart, let us get to work.”

He whipped round, closed his visor, and looked quickly to the buckles of his harness, and to see that his dagger was loose in its sheath. His shield, that he had hung on a bough of the apple-tree, dipped down and changed the fruit bough for his arm. The taut grip of the strap gave Bertrand a kind of comfort. He had two friends left him, his battered shield and his old sword.

Round the corner of the house came Croquart, his bassinet half laced, his scabbard bumping against his legs, the creases in his red surcoat showing that he had been asleep. He saw the man leaning lazily against the tree, and promptly cursed him for not answering his whistle.

“Harduin, blockhead, water the horses!”

The sentinel moved never an inch.

“Hallo, there, hallo, have you got maggots in your brain?”

Croquart’s hail might have cheered on a troop of horse in the thick of a charge home. He came striding through the grass, with his fingers twitching, a buffet tingling in the muscles of his arm.

“Hallo, you deaf fool—”

His mouth was open, the lips a red oval, empty for the instant of more words. It was not Harduin under the tree, but the man in the black harness who had stricken down Guymon in the woods. Croquart looked staggered, like some fat grandee charged in the pit of the stomach by a small boy’s head.

The repulse was but momentary. He leaped full six feet from where he stood, sweeping his gadded fist forward with good intent for the stranger’s head. Bertrand, every muscle on the alert, was quicker far than Croquart. The Fleming’s fist smashed the bark from the tree, leaving him bloody knuckles despite his glove.

“Good-day, Brother Croquart”—and a sword came to the salute—“they have offered five thousand crowns for your head at Josselin.”

The Fleming began tying the laces of his bassinet.

“And who are you, sir, that you are such a fool to think of earning the Sieur de Beaumanoir’s money?”

“I am a Breton, Brother Croquart, and that is the reason why I am going to have your head.”