The peacock, in the mating season, has more gorgeous plumage, and makes the greatest possible display of it. The nightingale and the redbreast have sweeter voices. All alike take pleasure in so arraying themselves as to give pleasure. "Where are you going, Livette?" her two friends asked her. "I am going to see monsieur le curé. I must have a talk with him, poor me! for it was a great sin to listen to that sorceress, you know!" XIV JOUSTING Both Renaud and Rampal had spears. As he rode by the Neuf farm, half a league from Saintes-Maries, Rampal, who owned nothing in the world but his saddle, and had no spear, being at that time simply a drover out of a job, had spied one leaning against a fig-tree, and had appropriated it without dismounting, had "borrowed it without a word," thinking that he should probably need it to defend himself. Now he was galloping across the fields, leaning forward on his horse's neck, with his thong in his boot and the spear resting in the stirrup. Renaud had mistaken the road in his hot pursuit. Perhaps the gipsy was the cause of it, for, in spite of himself, in order to remain within her range of vision, Renaud had ridden straight toward the Vaccarès, while Rampal had just taken the road to Arles, avoiding stratagem in order to mislead his pursuer more effectually, for he said to himself that Renaud would surely argue that he had made for the middle of the island to take refuge in some deserted _jass_. Renaud divined Rampal's plan. "He will keep to the road," he suddenly thought, and feeling certain that he was right, he turned to the left and rode due west. Rampal, having the start of him by a full league, drew rein in the vicinity of Grandes-Cabanes, and having planted his spear-head in the ground, rested both hands upon it, then placed his feet, one after the other, on the hind-quarters of his horse, and stood there for some moments, scanning the plain behind him. Between two clumps of tamarisks he caught a glimpse of a horseman, like a flash of light, or like a rabbit scuttling between two wild thyme bushes--Renaud, beyond question! Rampal saw that Renaud, if it were he, was about to take to the road, and he himself thereupon left it and rode in the opposite direction on a line parallel to that his enemy was following in the distance. When Renaud reached the road and turned into it, Rampal had the Vaccarès in front of him, and there he turned to the left and followed the shore. His plan was to cross the main stream of the Rhône, and reach the Conscript's Hut, in the middle of the _gargate_, the spot where he was confident of finding safe shelter in times of serious danger. Unluckily for him, he had been seen--when he was standing on his horse watching his man--by a fisherman who was crouching on the edge of the canal, fishing for eels with a reed and a short line, at the end of which was a bunch of worms, strung and twisted together.