Mancha had one of Ravenutzi’s arms twisted under the smith’s own body and his own hand at the smith’s throat.
“Mancha! Manc——” The voice broke with a bubbling sound.
He had the smith’s windpipe under his thumb, he was shaking him and grinding his head into the earth. A hand from behind clutched upon his heel. He kicked out and heard a wet cough, followed by a groan, but he could not turn to see what came of it. He shook and wried the smith’s head as it blackened under his hand.
“Where is she? Tell me where she is,” he cried, short and gaspingly. With every repetition of the word he lifted the smith’s head and ground it into the earth. He saw surrender in the bitten tongue and the protruding eyes. He rested a little, but as yet he would not spare the time to look behind him. Ravenutzi came slowly back to consciousness.
“Tell me where she is.” The answer came thickly.
“Where, where——” There was a motion of the choking and grinding to begin again.
“How can I tell you?... in a place known only to me.”
“If I let you up will you take me to it?”
“Breath,” said Ravenutzi, “give me breath.”
Mancha let his throat be while he bound the man’s arms.
“A dead man, I think.” Mancha glanced slightingly over his shoulder.
“One of them is across your feet; a lad of mine killed him. I do not know where the others are, it is some moments since I heard fighting.”
“All to us ... _you dog_ ... if I let you up she is?”
But it was not until Mancha had bound and rebound him that he left the smith to go and turn over the stiffening body of Lianth and wipe the bloody froth from his lips.
XIII HOW THEY FOUND THE RUBIES, AND THE SMITH’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF
News of the fight reached River Ward before midnight, but before that, about dusk, we heard Trastevera singing, walking up and down on a low hill scented and white with gilias, hymning of victory. And after I had lain down in my accustomed place I heard the women all about me, fevered with expectation, rising to intimations of approach too fine for me. From that part of the camp where the women of the Far-Folk slept, there arose now and then some sharp accent of dismay and grief, succeeded by the nearly mortal dejection of defeat. Unable at last to bear the night so full of noises and suspense, I rose and walked to the edge of the wide, bush-grown shallow where the Outliers were camped and met Herman coming to find me.