"Lady," he stammered, "I--I fear--I can ride--no farther!"
And now, as one a-dream, he beheld her start and look at him with eyes wide and darkly blue--within whose depths was that which stirred within him a memory of other days--in so much he would have spoken, yet found the words unready and hard to come by.
"Lady,--thine eyes, methinks--are not--nun's eyes!"
But now behold of a sudden she cried out, soft and pitiful, for blood was upon him, upon his brow, upon his golden hair. And still as one a-dream he felt her slip from his failing clasp, felt her arms close about him, aiding him to earth.
"Thou'rt hurt!" she cried. "O, thou'rt wounded! And I never guessed!"
But she hushed him with soft mother-cries and tender-spoke commands, and aiding him to the brook, laid him thereby to lave his hurt within the cool, sweet water; and, waking with the smart, Beltane sighed and turned to look up at her. Now did she, meeting his eyes, put up one white hand, setting back sombre hood and snowy wimple, and stooping tenderly above him, behold, in that moment down came the shining glory of her lustrous hair to fall about the glowing beauty of her face, touching his brow like a caress.
Then, at last, memory awoke within him, and lifting himself upon a feeble elbow, he stared upon her glowing loveliness with wide, glad eyes.
"Helen!" he sighed, "O--Helen!" And, so sighing, fell back, and lay there pale and wan within the dawn, but with a smile upon his pallid lips.
HOW BELTANE PLIGHTED HIS TROTH IN THE GREEN
Beltane yawned prodigiously, stretched mightily, and opening sleepy eyes looked about him. He lay 'neath shady willows within a leafy bower; before him a brook ran leaping to the sunshine and filling the warm, stilly air with its merry chatter and soft, laughing noises, while beyond the rippling water the bank sloped steeply upward to the green silence of the woods.
Now as Beltane lay thus 'twixt sleeping and waking, it seemed to him that in the night he had dreamed a wondrous dream, and fain he would have slept again. But now from an adjacent thicket a horse whinnied and Beltane, starting at the sound, felt his wound throb with sudden pain, and looking down, beheld his arm most aptly swathed in bandages of fair, soft linen. Now would he have sat up, but marvelled to find it so great a matter, and propping himself instead upon a weak elbow glanced about him expectantly. And lo, in that moment, one spake near by in voice rich and soft like the call of merle or mavis: