down by
his wretched arbalest. His face was pale, and his eyes staring wide,
and turned despairingly on his dear friend. Gerard uttered a wild cry
of love and terror, and made for him, cleaving the water madly; but the
next moment Denys was under water.

The next, Gerard was after him.

The officers knotted a rope and threw the end in.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Things good and evil balance themselves in a remarkable manner and
almost universally. The steel bow attached to the arbalestrier's back,
and carried above his head, had sunk him. That very steel bow, owing
to that very position, could not escape Gerard's hands, one of which
grasped it, and the other went between the bow and the cord, which was
as good. The next moment, Denys, by means of his crossbow, was hoisted
with so eager a jerk that half his body bobbed up out of water.

"Now, grip me not! grip me not!" cried Gerard, in mortal terror of that
fatal mistake.

"Pas si bete," gurgled Denys.

Seeing the sort of stuff he had to deal with, Gerard was hopeful and
calm directly. "On thy back," said he sharply, and seizing the arbalest,
and taking a stroke forward, he aided the desired movement. "Hand on
my shoulder! slap the water with the other hand! No--with a downward
motion; so. Do nothing more than I bid thee." Gerard had got hold of
Denys's long hair, and twisting it hard, caught the end between his side
teeth, and with the strong muscles of his youthful neck easily kept up
the soldier's head, and struck out lustily across the current. A moment
he had hesitated which side to make for, little knowing the awful
importance of that simple decision; then seeing the west bank a trifle
nearest, he made towards it, instead of swimming to jail like a good
boy, and so furnishing one a novel incident. Owing to the force of the
current they slanted considerably, and when they had covered near a
hundred yards, Denys murmured uneasily, "How much more of it?"

"Courage," mumbled Gerard. "Whatever a duck knows, a Dutchman knows; art
safe as in bed."

The next moment, to their surprise, they found themselves in shallow
water, and so waded ashore. Once on terra firma, they looked at one
another from head to foot as if eyes could devour, then by one impulse
flung each an arm round the other's neck, and panted there with hearts
too full to speak. And at this sacred moment life was sweet as heaven to
both; sweetest perhaps to the poor exiled lover, who had just saved his
f