nce had escaped unscathed -- that was the point of paramount
importance in the minds of many -- and he was now engrossed in striving
to relieve the sufferings of his wounded comrades by seeing their wounds
skilfully bound up by the huntsmen, and obtaining for them draughts of
clear cold water from a spring that bubbled up within the cavern itself.

Gaston and Raymond had escaped with minor hurts; but John's case was
plainly serious, and the flow of blood had been very great before any
help could reach him. He was quite unconscious, and looked like death as
he lay on the floor of the cave; and after fruitless efforts to revive
him, the Prince commanded a rude litter to be made wherein he might be
transported to the Palace by the huntsmen who had not taken part in the
struggle, and were therefore least weary. The horses were not very far
away, and the rest of the wounded and the rescued captives could make
shift to walk that far, and afterwards gain the Palace by the help of
their sturdy steeds.

Thus it came about that Master Bernard de Brocas, who had believed the
Prince and his party to be engaged in the harmless and (to them) safe
sport of tracking and hunting a boar in the forest, was astounded beyond
all power of speech by seeing a battered and ghastly procession enter
the courtyard two hours before dusk, bearing in their midst a litter
upon which lay the apparently inanimate form of his eldest nephew, his
brother's first-born and heir.

CHAPTER VII. THE RECTOR'S HOUSE.

"It was well thought and boldly executed, my son," said the King of
England, as he looked with fatherly pride at his bright-faced boy. "Thou
wilt win thy spurs ere long, I doubt not, an thou goest on thus. But it
must be an exploit more worthy thy race and state that shall win thee
the knighthood which thou dost rightly covet. England's Prince must be
knighted upon some glorious battlefield -- upon a day of victory that I
trow will come ere long for thee and me. And now to thy mother, boy, and
ask her pardon for the fright thou madest her to suffer, when thy
sisters betrayed to her the wild chase upon which thou and thy boy
comrades were bent. Well was it for all that our trusty huntsmen were
with you, else might England be mourning sore this day for a life cut
off ere it had seen its first youthful prime. Yet, boy, I have not heart
to chide thee; all I ask is that when thou art bent on some quest of
glory or peril another time, thou wi