This, I say, I had from one of the captives, for I talked of her to the Outliers only with Trastevera. I think the woman’s story was known to them. She was seen often flitting from some post of observation when they came with prisoners, and though it was certain she had been twice inside the Ledge seeking the place where Zirriloë lay hidden, no motion was made to take her. They judged her no doubt hunted by a more remorseless enemy; the same that drove on Mancha’s trail and wasted him in the night. It was strange to me at first when I looked on the Hammerer’s passion-hollowed face, to see how it was contradicted by the youthful fuzziness of his blond hair and the round stalwartness of his frame, until I realized that he tried to make his body what his hammer was, the instrument of his satisfaction, and nursed it carefully to that end. But here the invisible enemy had him at point. Eat he could, and bathe, and exercise himself and rough the handle of his hammer to his grasp, and tighten the thongs. But in the night sleep and jealousy contended, and he turned in his bed and set his teeth upon his hands. His eyes reddened at the lids, and when he would be sitting among us, his attention would be forever wandering, and there would be a half inadvertent movement of those same hands as if to rend and tear. It was plain that he came but half out of some burning preoccupation to attend to whatever his men brought to his notice, and slipped back into it even between the utterance of two words, like a drowned insect in a glass. He was seldom at River Ward, seeming easier to be on the trail and in action. That there was only one trail that interested him was perfectly evident. He cared nothing whatever for the recovery of the Treasure if only he might get at Ravenutzi and find where the Ward was hidden. And as often as Outliers and Far-Folk came together in running fights, his men fell apart tacitly to afford him the craved-for opportunity. As we knew afterward, by Oca’s express direction, the Far-Folk closed round the smith to oppose him. As often as Mancha came back unslaked, his new whetted fury turned on himself. Bitter as these frustrated encounters were, they were less so than those times when they surprised their enemy and found Ravenutzi not with them. Where was he then but lingering in some shut quarter with the Ward! One would know that this had occurred when the Hammerer sat upon the edges of his bed the night long goading himself with recollections. “Give over; give up,” cried Trastevera to him. “She never thought of you; and what do you but suck poison from the thought of her?” “And what,” said he, “shall I think of, if I do not think of her? Do you advise me to think of _him_?” “Think of your work, how you are to win back the King’s Desire for us.”