As the road led nearer to Argelliers they overtook yellow coaches, full of people, and country carts swinging along. The drivers pointed their whips ahead, and shouted something, but the words were lost in the rush of the wind as the car rushed by them.
"The whole countryside seems to know that he's escaped. There'll be thousands in the Market Place," Bouvier said.
"It'll be a fine story," Humphrey agreed. "Those other fellows must have missed it." He was drunk with the excitement and the happiness of hunting a quarry.
They came to the Market Place of Argelliers, and the sight amazed him.
Left and right the people crushed together--a rectangular pattern of humanity. People of all ages had been drawn there by the magnetism of this man who had stirred up the South to revolt. The caps and dresses of the women and girls gave touches of colour to the sombre crowd of men, and, as he stood up in the motor-car for a better view, he saw row upon row of pink, upturned faces, parted, eager lips, and eyes that strained against the sunshine to see the black-clad figure of a man standing on the low roof of the People's Committee. Boys had climbed the trees round the Market Place--their gaping faces shone from the dark branches; and on the outskirts of the vast crowd men and women stood up in carts and waggonettes--horses had been harnessed to anything that ran on wheels.
There was not a soldier in sight. The sun shone fiercely on the Market Place of Argelliers, where two thousand people were thinking of their wrongs. And the man on the roof talked to them. His voice, strong and sonorous, came to them urging them to be of good cheer. They flung back at him cries of encouragement, and called him by name.
"I'm going into the crowd," Humphrey said.
"Better stop here," urged Bouvier. "They're an excitable lot."
Humphrey climbed out of the car, and pushed his way into the middle of the crowd. There was a loud shouting over some remark that the speaker had made. He found himself wedged in tightly between heavy, broad-shouldered men, with black eyes and swarthy faces. He heard the man on the roof speak about those who had been attacking him, and a voice close to Humphrey yelled, "_La Depêche de Toulouse_," and immediately another voice cried out, "_Conspuez la Depêche de Toulouse_." He turned at the voice and saw, with a sudden shock, the shaggy-haired man with the bloodshot eyes who had dogged his footsteps that first day in Narbonne. Their glances met. Humphrey thrust back into his pocket the pencil with which he had been making furtive notes.