“A dead man, I think.” Mancha glanced slightingly over his shoulder. “Where is my king?” “Prassade has taken him.” “And my friends?” “One of them is across your feet; a lad of mine killed him. I do not know where the others are, it is some moments since I heard fighting.” “It is all to you, then?” “All to us ... _you dog_ ... if I let you up she is?” “I will take you.” But it was not until Mancha had bound and rebound him that he left the smith to go and turn over the stiffening body of Lianth and wipe the bloody froth from his lips. XIII HOW THEY FOUND THE RUBIES, AND THE SMITH’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF News of the fight reached River Ward before midnight, but before that, about dusk, we heard Trastevera singing, walking up and down on a low hill scented and white with gilias, hymning of victory. And after I had lain down in my accustomed place I heard the women all about me, fevered with expectation, rising to intimations of approach too fine for me. From that part of the camp where the women of the Far-Folk slept, there arose now and then some sharp accent of dismay and grief, succeeded by the nearly mortal dejection of defeat. Unable at last to bear the night so full of noises and suspense, I rose and walked to the edge of the wide, bush-grown shallow where the Outliers were camped and met Herman coming to find me. “Do not go where the women are,” he said; “the wounded are there, and besides, they do not want us.” Very softly we skirted the edge of the swale and climbed to the foot of a knoll overlooking it. Some oaks grew here, and the prostrate trunks were strong to lean against. The moon was gone on her last quarter, and the figures of men moving in the swale were large and vague against it. There was a wind stirring that kept up a whimpering whisper in the tops of the chaparral. It took the voices as they rose through it and rounded them to indistinctness; only by listening attentively could we distinguish between the acclamations of victory and cries of loss and pain. “But tell me,” I insisted to Herman, “you have been among the men, have they brought back the King’s Desire?” “Look,” he said, “at that man moving there as he turns against the moon; do you see the line of light that runs about his forehead? And there! what glitters on that outstretched arm? Hardly a man of them but has some gold about him, but they have not said a word.” “And who has the Cup of the Four Quarters?” “Noche took it from Oca’s son; I saw him studying it by the reflected moon, but when I came up he hid it in his bosom.” “And the great rubies?” “They have not come in.” “Herman,” I said, after a long pause, “what do you think they will do with it—and us?” “The King’s Desire? Bury it, I hope. With us? Do you know, Mona, I am no longer anxious about what they will do to us.” “No; they have been good friends of ours.”