Jaufre waved a sinewy hand toward Roche-de-Frêne. The half-light and the storm in the air edged his mood. “Well, they will pay!” he said. He lay silent for a minute, then spoke again, but more to himself than to Count Savaric. “Until lately I took that woman yonder—” he jerked a thumb toward the high, distant, blue banner,—”for the mere earth I must take in hand to get the diamond of Roche-de-Frêne! So I had the diamond, the bride that came with it was no great matter. She had no beauty, they said. But, Eye of God! there were other women on earth! They are plentiful. Take this one that went with the diamond, get sons upon her, and let her be silent.... Now, I care less for the diamond, I think, than to humble the Princess Audiart!” Count Savaric, leaning forward, regarded the bridge-end. “Gaultier Cap-du-Loup is there.... Ha, they send men to meet him! That may develop—” The castle loomed against the grey curtain of cloud. The minutiæ of the place appeared to enlarge, intensify. Each detail grew individual, stubborn, a fortress in itself. The whole mocked like the heaped clouds. “Ha, my Lady Audiart!” said Jaufre, “who will not have me for lord—who takes a sword in her hand and fights me—” He sat up upon the skins, poured himself a cup of wine, and drank. His father, looking still at the bridge-tower, rose with suddenness to his feet. “The lord of Chalus and his men are going in! There must be yonder half Stephen the Marshal’s force! The plain stirs. Ha! best arm—” Jaufre rose now also. There was a gleam in his eye. “Breath of God!” he said. “I feel to-day like battle!” His squires armed him. While they worked the trumpets blew, rousing every segment of the camp. Trumpets answered from beyond the bridge. In the town the alarum bell began its deep ringing. The day turned sound and motion. Count Savaric left his tent, mounted a charger that was brought, and spurred to the head of a press of knights. The colours of the plain shifted to the eye; dust hung above the head of the bridge and all the earth thereabouts; out of it came a heavy sound with shouting. The area affected increased; it was evident that there might ensue a considerable, perhaps a general, battle. It was as though a small stir in the air had unexpectedly spread to whirlwind dimensions. And all the time the sky hung moveless, with an iron tint. They armed Jaufre in chain-mail, put over this a green surcoat worked with black, attached his spurs, laced his helmet, gave him knightly belt and two-edged sword, held the stirrup while he mounted the war horse, gave him shield and spear. He looked a red-gold giant, and he was a bold fighter, and many a man followed him willingly. He shook his spear at the castle, and at the banner waving above the huge donjon. “Ha, Audiart the Wise! Watch now your lord do battle!”