and sore wound in his side; neither was he come to himself again:
he was a young man, and very goodly to look on, dark haired and
straight of feature, fair of face; and Ralph felt a grief at his heart
as he beheld the Lady's hands dealing with his bare flesh, though
nought the man knew of it belike.

As for the Knight of the Sun, he was no more grim and moody, but
smiling and joyous, and he spake and said: "Young man, this shall
stand thee in good stead that I have not slain my friend this bout.
Sooth to say, it might else have gone hard with thee on the way to my
house, or still more in my house. But now be of good heart, for unless
of thine own folly thou run on the sword's point, thou mayst yet live
and do well." Then he turned to the Lady and said: "Dame, for as good
a leech as ye be, ye may not heal this man so that he may sit in his
saddle within these ten days; and now what is to do in this matter?"

She looked on him with smiling lips and a strange light in her eyes,
and said: "Yea, forsooth, what wilt thou do? Wilt thou abide here by
Walter thyself alone, and let me bring the imp of Upmeads home to our
house? Or wilt thou ride home and send folk with a litter to us? Or
shall this youngling ride at all adventure, and seek to Sunway through
the blind woodland? Which shall it be?"

The knight laughed outright, and said: "Yea, fair one, this is much
like to the tale of the carle at the ferry with the fox, and the goat,
and the cabbage."

There was scarce a smile on her face as she said gently: "One thing is
to be thought of, that Walter's soul is not yet so fast in his body
that either thou or some rough-handed leech may be sure of healing him;
it must be this hand, and the learning which it hath learned which must
deal with him for a while." And she stretched out her arm over the
wounded man, with the fingers pointing down the water, and reddened
withal, as if she felt the hearts' greediness of the two men who were
looking on her beauty.

The big knight sighed, and said: "Well, unless I am to kill him over
again, there is nothing for it but our abiding with him for the next
few hours at least. To-morrow is a new day, and fair is the
woodland-hall of summer-tide; neither shall water fail us. But as to
victual, I wot not save that we have none."

The Lady laughed, and said to Ralph; "Who knoweth what thou mayst find
if thou go to the black horse and look into the saddle-bags which I saw
upon him