"Here be two royal beds," said Denys; "which shall we lie on, the mow,
or the straw?"

"The straw for me," said Gerard.

They sat on the heap, and ate their brown bread, and drank their wine,
and then Denys covered his friend up in straw, and heaped it high above
him, leaving him only a breathing hole: "Water, they say, is death to
fevered men; I'll make warm water on't, anyhow."

Gerard bade him make his mind easy. "These few drops from Rhine cannot
chill me. I feel heat enough in my body now to parch a kennel, or boil a
cloud if I was in one." And with this epigram his consciousness went so
rapidly, he might really be said to "fall asleep."

Denys, who lay awake awhile, heard that which made him nestle closer.
Horses' hoofs came ringing up from Dusseldorf, and the wooden barn
vibrated as they rattled past howling in a manner too well known and
understood in the 15th century, but as unfamiliar in Europe now as a red
Indian's war-whoop.

Denys shook where he lay.

Gerard slept like a top.

It all swept by, and troop and howls died away.

The stout soldier drew a long breath, whistled in a whisper, closed his
eyes, and slept like a top, too.

In the morning he sat up and put out his hand to wake Gerard. It lighted
on the young man's forehead, and found it quite wet. Denys then in his
quality of nurse forbore to wake him. "It is ill to check sleep or sweat
in a sick man," said he. "I know that far, though I ne'er minced ape nor
gallows-bird."

After waiting a good hour he felt desperately hungry; so he turned, and
in self-defence went to sleep again.

Poor fellow, in his hard life he had been often driven to this
manoeuvre. At high noon he was waked by Gerard moving, and found him
sitting up with the straw smoking round him like a dung-hill. Animal
heat versus moisture. Gerard called him "a lazy loon." He quietly
grinned.

They set out, and the first thing Denys did was to give Gerard his
arbalest, etc., and mount a high tree on the road. "Coast clear to the
next village," said he, and on they went.

On drawing near the village, Denys halted and suddenly inquired of
Gerard how he felt.

"What! can you not see? I feel as if Rome was no further than yon
hamlet."

"But thy body, lad; thy skin?"

"Neither hot nor cold; and yesterday 'twas hot one while and cold
another. But what I cannot get rid of is this tiresome leg."

"Le grand malheur! Many of my comrades have found no such difficulty."

"Ah!