The air vibrated and hummed with the unbroken rolling of the bombardment; there was not a cloud in the calm sky; no birds sang and few, except the darting swallows of the Récollette, were on the wing at all; but everywhere dragon flies glittered, level-winged, poised in mid-air, or darted and hovered among the reeds with a faint, fairy-like clash of gauzy wings.
The sound of the cannonade grew so much more distinct as they drew near the environs of Ausone that, to Warner, the increase in volume and the jar of concussion seemed scarcely due alone to their approach. Rather it appeared as though the distant reverberations were very gradually rolling toward them; and before they had poled within sight of the outskirts of the town Warner said to Philippa:
"It sounds to me as though the whole business were miles nearer than the mere distance we have come. And that is not an encouraging suggestion, either."
"Could it be the wind which is carrying it toward us?"
"There is very little wind in those tree tops up there." He shrugged, poled ahead, not apprehensive, yet conscious that Philippa had no business in a town from the vicinity of which such ominous sounds could be heard so distinctly.
Few people were moving on the Ausone road, merely a belated group or two trudging southward. Except for a distant cavalry patrol riding slowly along the quarry road across the river, the country appeared to be empty of military movement. As they advanced upstream, one fact became apparent; the fugitives who had passed through Saïs that morning had not come from the scattered hamlets and cottages along the Récollette. They could see women washing linen along the river banks and hanging out the wash on clotheslines. Old men and children fished tranquilly from the sterns of skiffs pulled up among the rushes; cattle stood knee-deep in the limpid stream under the fringe of trees; a farmer who had cut his wheat and barley had already begun threshing. It was evident that the exodus from the north was not, so far, affecting Ausone.
When their punt glided past the great willow tree where the Impasse d’Alcyon terminated at the river bank, Warner, swinging his pole level, pointed in silence and looked at Philippa. She smiled interrogatively in response.