Malmain, generous creature, filled the passage like a gate. Her face matched her scarlet smock, and she was grinning like some grotesque head from the antique. Mark came to a halt, and leaning on his spear, looked at her in the most bland manner possible. He did not trust women overmuch, and he mistrusted Malmain in particular. Moreover, she smacked of the wine-cask. The woman edged close, and shook a fist in his face with a certain bluff enthusiasm. "A bargain! a bargain!" The passage was open to the west, and a glare of sunlight shimmered into Mark's eyes. He could only see the woman as a great blur, a mass of trailing hair, a loose, exuberant smock haloed with gold. "Ha! my cherub, you seem in fettle." The fist still flickered in his face. "A bargain! a bargain!" "Mother of mercy! you are in such a devil of a hurry." "A kiss for what's in my hand." "A buffet--big one--a rush-ring, or a garter?" "That tongue of yours; look and see, look and see!" Malmain spread her fingers. The man saw a ring of gold carved in the form of a dragon, with rubies for eyes, and a collar of emeralds about its throat. Lying in the woman's moist, fat palm, it glimmered in the slant light of the sun. Mark's eyes glittered as he looked at it. "I had the thing from the woman above," quoth Malmain, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "A bribe?" "Who'd bribe me? Not a woman!" "Honest soul." "'That ring looks well on your finger,' said I. 'I shall have it.' 'Never!' said she. 'That's too big a word,' said I. So I forced it off, for all her temper, and broke her finger in the doing of it." A transient shadow seemed to pass across the man's face, the wraith of a ghost-wrath insensible to the world. "Close the bargain, cherub." "A buss for it." "Twenty kisses in a week, and my mug of supper beer." He had the ring. Malmain did not stand alone in her devotion to Mark of the guard. The man had come by another friend in Tintagel, a friend without influence, it is true, but one, at least, who possessed abundant individuality, and the charm of an ingenuous nature. Mark was no mere bravo when he turned partisan to the lad Jehan, and took him within the pale of his mothering wit. He had a profound knowledge of men, and a philosophic insight into character that had not been gained solely on the march or in the ale-house. By profession he appeared a devil-may-care gentleman of the sword, a man of bone and muscle, the possessor of a vigorous stomach. These attributes were mere stage properties, so to speak, necessary to him for the occasion. For the rest, he knew what he knew.