Suddenly Simon seized
Aylward by the shoulder and pushed him into the shadow of the
bank. Crouching in the darkness, they heard footsteps and voices
upon the farther side of the trench. Two men sauntered along it
and stopped almost at the very spot where the comrades were lying.
Aylward could see their dark figures outlined against the starry
sky.
"Why should you scold, Jacques," said one of them, speaking a
strange half-French, half-English lingo. "Le diable t'emporte for
a grumbling rascal. You won a woman and I got nothing. What more
would you have?"
"You will have your chance off the next ship, mon garcon, but mine
is passed. A woman, it is true--an old peasant out of the
fields, with a face as yellow as a kite's claw. But Gaston, who
threw a nine against my eight, got as fair a little Normandy lass
as ever your eyes have seen. Curse the dice, I say! And as to my
woman, I will sell her to you for a firkin of Gascony."
"I have no wine to spare, but I will give you a keg of apples,"
said the other. "I had it out of the Peter and Paul, the Falmouth
boat that struck in Creux Bay."
"Well, well your apples may be the worse for keeping, but so is
old Marie, and we can cry quits on that. Come round and drink a
cup over the bargain."
They shuffled onward in the darkness.
"Heard you ever such villainy?" cried Aylward, breathing fierce
and hard.
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