ave-Flame in my
hand, as I had drawn it to make ready for the last fight to the death.
All sorts of sweet names she called me--a hero, her deliverer, and I
know not what besides.

In the end, as I made no answer, being dazed, also hurt by an axe blow
on the breast which I had not felt before, dealt by that Frenchman whom
I slew near the Castle, she did more. Throwing her arms about me she
kissed me thrice, on either cheek and on the lips, doubtless because she
was overwrought, and in her thankfulness forgot her maidenly reserve,
though as William Bull said afterwards, this forgetfulness did not cause
her to kiss him who had also helped her up the hill.

Those kisses were like wine to me, for it is strange how, if we love
her, by the decree of Nature the touch of a beautiful woman's lips, felt
for the first time, affects us in our youth. Whatever else we forget,
that we always remember, however false those lips afterwards be proved.
For then the wax is soft and the die sinks deep, so deep that no
after-heats can melt its stamp and no fretting wear it out while we live
beneath the sun.

Now my young blood being awakened, I was minded to return those kisses,
and began to do so with a Jew's interest, when I heard a rough voice
swearing many strange oaths, and heard also the other women who had
sheltered with us in the cave begin to titter, for the moment forgetting
all their private woes, as those of their sex will do when there is
kissing in the wind.

"God's blood!" said the rough voice, "who is this that handles my
daughter as though they had been but an hour wed? Take those lips of
yours from her, fellow, or I'll cut them from your chops."

I looked round astonished, to see Sir Robert Aleys mounted on a grey
horse, and followed by a company of men-at-arms who appeared to be under
the command of a well-favoured, dark-eyed young captain with long hair,
and dressed more wondrously than any man I had ever seen before. Had he
put on Joseph's coat over his mail, he could not have worn more colours,
and I noted that the toes of his shoes curled up so high that I wondered
however he worked them through his stirrups, and what would happen to
him if by chance he were unhorsed.

Being taken aback I made no answer, but William Bull, who, if a rough
fellow, had a tongue in his head and a ready wit, spoke up for me.

"If you want to know," he said in his Sussex drawl, "I'll tell you who
he is, Sir Robert Aleys. He is my worsh