ements. Am I to be shut up here without an
outlook?"

"May I be hanged if I do that," exclaimed Klussman. "Make a footstool of
myself for a spoiled puppet like thee?"

Le Rossignol ran towards him and kicked his boots with the heel of her
moccasin. The Swiss, remonstrating and laughing, moved back before her.

"Have some care--thou wilt break a deer-hoof on my stout leather. And
why mount the battlements? A fall from this turret edge would spread
thee out like a raindrop. Though the fewer women there are in the world
the better," added Klussman bitterly.

"Presume not to call me a woman!"

"Why, what art thou?"

"I am the nightingale."

"By thy red head thou art the woodpecker. Here is my back, clatterbill.
Why should I not crawl the ground to be walked over? I have been worse
used than that."

He grinned fiercely as he bent down with his hands upon his knees. Le
Rossignol mounted the cannon, and with a couple of light bounds, making
him a perch midway, reached an embrasure and sat arranging her robes.

"Now you may hand me my clavier," she said, "and then you shall have my
thanks and my pardon."

The Swiss handed her the instrument. His contempt was ruder than he
knew. Le Rossignol pulled her gull-skin cap well down upon her ears,
for though the day was now bright overhead, a raw wind came across the
bay. She leaned over and looked down into the fortress to call her swan.
The cook was drawing water from the well, and that soft sad note lifted
his eyes to the turret. Le Rossignol squinted at him, and the man went
into the barracks and told his wife that he felt shooting pains in his
limbs that instant.

"Come hither, gentle Swiss," said the dwarf striking the plectrum into
her mandolin strings, "and I will reward thee for thy back and all thy
courtly services."

Klussman stepped to the wall and looked with her into the fort.

"Take that sweet sight for my thanks," said Le Rossignol, pointing to
Marguerite below. The miserable girl had come out of the barracks and
was sitting in the sun beside the oven. She rested her head against it
and met the sky light with half-shut eyes, lovely in silken hair and
pallid flesh through all her sullenness and dejection. As Klussman saw
her he uttered an oath under his breath, which the dwarf's hand on the
mandolin echoed with a bang. He turned his back on the sight and betook
himself to the stairway, the dwarf's laughter following him. She felt
high in the world and pl