The Outlier saw the tortured woman writhing with impatience, saw the shadows shorten toward noon, and crows flying over, and then he saw Ravenutzi. The smith came over the sag of the hills, walking steadily, with apparently nothing on his mind but to get on to the place where he was going. He passed the woman lying among the boulders. The Outlier saw her crowding her face in the dust as he went by, as if she feared she must have cried out and run to him if she had looked. He passed the hill where the watcher lay, and struck into his former trail, deeply cogitating, looking neither down nor about to discover if he had been followed. When the smith was quite out of the hollow the woman rose and ran the way he had come, and the watcher considered. He thought most likely the Ward was at the end of that trail, but he had no particular interest in her, it was Ravenutzi who bred mischief and must be looked after. Accordingly he kept the smith in sight. As they passed the neighborhood of River Ward going back, the Outlier whistled one of his fellows out of the wood and sent word to Mancha. That was how it happened when the Far-Folk came together to have their last direction from the smith, that there was an Outlier tracked him quite to that place. Behind him, following a slot of bent twigs and broken leaves, were Prassade and Persilope with the slingsmen and Mancha with the hammerers. It was late of the afternoon and the light low enough to dazzle in the eyes. The place was rather level and open, with thin-branched pines and scant fern; behind it a sharp hill breaking abruptly. Oca sat below the hill where a glade opened, and the thick locks of his beard, heavy and waved like sculptor’s work, were gathered in his hand. He had on his head the circlet of fire-stones that gleamed as he turned, red, blue and green like some strange insect’s eyes. His body was half bare and his arms from the elbow up were banded with circles of beaten gold. The smith whispered behind him, and as the chief nodded, the eyes of his circlet changed from blue to green and red again as though they took their color from his thought. Around stood the Far-Folk, eager, pleased with themselves, more interested in the cunning of their scheme than anxious over its success, making the necklets and armlets to shine on their dark skins. They laughed, boasting together like boys, then crowding one another to stillness to hear what went on among the leaders debating round Oca with some show of order. Half girt they stood, pluming themselves upon the morrow, the ring of unguarded backs turned outward. And in the midst of this came a sharp winging like the flight of birds—but no birds so swift—and a heavy pelting as of hail—but no hail tapped so loudly on the trees or thudded so sickeningly on human flesh. The outer ring of the Far-Folk surged toward the middle and there was a rush of those within outward, and then the pleasant wood was full of racing figures and hurtling noises.