Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/48

24 Alleyne thought of what he had read of demoniac possession—the jumpings, the twitchings, the wild talk. It was in his mind to repeat over the exorcism proper to such attacks; but the two burst out a-laughing at his scared face, and, turning on to their heads once more, clapped their heels in derision.

'Hast never seen tumblers before?' asked the elder, a black-browed swarthy man, as brown and supple as a hazel-twig. 'Why shrink from us, then, as though we were the spawn of the Evil One?'

'Why shrink, my honey-bird? Why so afeard, my sweet cinnamon?' exclaimed the other, a loose-jointed lanky youth with a dancing roguish eye.

'Truly, sirs, it is a new sight to me,' the clerk answered. 'When I saw your four legs above the bush I could scarce credit my own eyes. Why is it that you do this thing?'

'A dry question to answer,' cried the younger, coming back on to his feet. 'A most husky question, my fair bird! But how? A flask, a flask!—by all that is wonderful!' He shot out his hand as he spoke, and plucking Alleyne's bottle out of bis scrip, he deftly knocked the neck off, and poured the half of it down his throat. The rest he handed to his comrade, who drank the wine, and then, to the clerk's increasing amazement, made a show of swallowing the bottle, with such skill that Alleyne seemed to see it vanish down his throat. A moment later, however, he flung it over his head, and caught it bottom downwards upon the calf of his left leg.

'We thank you for the wine, kind sir,' said he, 'and for the ready courtesy wherewith you offered it. Touching your question, we may tell you that we are strollers and jugglers, who, having performed with much applause at Winchester fair, are now on our way to the great Michaelmas market at Ringwood. As our art is a very fine and delicate one, however, we cannot let a day go by without exercising ourselves in it, to which end we choose some quiet and sheltered spot, where we may break our journey. Here you