ing for a sick man. She was in the stern of the boat, her fingers,
when her beads were told, trailing in the smooth water, that was green
with the shade of leaves. But her father stood by me, asking many
questions concerning the siege, and gaping at the half-mended arch of the
bridge, where through we sailed, and at the blackened walls of Les
Tourelles, and all the ruin that war had wrought. But now masons and
carpenters were very busy rebuilding all, and the air was full of the
tinkling of trowels and hammers. Presently we passed the place where I
had drawn Brother Thomas from the water; but thereof I said no word, for
indeed my dreams were haunted by his hooded face, like that of the snake
which, as travellers tell, wears a hood in Prester John's country, and is
the most venomous of beasts serpentine. So concerning Brother Thomas I
held my peace, and the barque, swinging round a corner of the bank, soon
brought us into a country with no sign of war on it, and here the poplar-
trees had not been felled for planks to make bulwarks, but whispered by
the riverside.

The wide stream carried many a boat, and shone with sails, white, and
crimson, and brown; the boat-men sang, or hailed each other from afar.
There was much traffic, stores being carried from Blois to the army. Some
mile or twain above Beaugency we were forced to land, and, I being borne
in a litter, we took a cross-path away from the stream, joining it again
two miles below Beaugency, because the English held that town, though not
for long. The sun had set, yet left all his gold shining on the water
when we entered Blois, and there rested at a hostel for the night. Next
day--one of the goodliest of my life, so soft and clear and warm it was,
yet with a cool wind on the water--we voyaged to Tours; and now Elliot
was glad enough, making all manner of mirth.

Her desire, she said, was to meet a friend that she had left at their
house in Tours, one that she had known as long as she knew me, my friend
he was too, yet I had never spoken of him, or asked how he did. Now I,
being wrapped up wholly in her, and in my joy to see her kind again, and
so beautiful, had no memory of any such friend, wherefore she mocked me,
and rebuked me for a hard heart and ungrateful. "This friend of mine,"
she said, "was the first that made us known each to other. Yea, but for
him, the birds might have pecked out your eyne, and the ants eaten your
bones bare, yet"--with a sudd