Part 10

By this time Simon had plucked open the knight's coat, and his fingers travelled dexterously over flesh that seemed womanly white and smooth in the moonlight.

"You are mighty compassionate," he grunted.

Argathona gave him a glance of pathetic reproval.

"I should be, being immortal," she answered, with a girlish dignity which was quaint in such a case.

Simon nodded silently. He had forgotten the girl's claim to immortality, but he was now very sure that she was a witch and her words did not worry him. Patiently he finished his examination of the body. A stroke aimed at the side had slipped on a buckle, causing only a gash where a hole had been hoped for. The loss of blood was not enough to account for the knight's helpless condition. Simon lifted him carefully to one side and then saw the cause of unconsciousness. The murderous blow that had been struck at the back of the knight's head had been struck at close quarters, and struck to kill. It had come pretty near to carry out its purpose, if the striking arm had been stronger.

Simon turned an encouraging countenance to the girl's grave face.

"Your knightling is not dead nor in great danger of death, though he has a nasty nick in the side that had better be bunged."

As he spoke he tore away a great piece of the youth's shirt and laid bare his side while he twisted the linen to shape a bandage.

"The worst of his business is that crack at the back of the head which has knocked him silly. It were well if we had some water."

"Let me do that," Argathona ordered, pointing to his employment. "I know how to stanch wounds. I saved the life of a stag lately that Alcibiades had wounded. Run you to the spring in the forest and bring me water."

When Argathona commanded in Argathona's woodland, Simon felt that it was for him to obey without question.

"Where is the spring?" he asked, as he rose to his feet.

Argathona drew from her girdle the myrtle-bough that she had thrust there when they began their wild race through the forest.

"Hold this so in your hand," she showed him, "and go straightly moonward, pressing it lightly between your palms. When it begins to quiver and twirl in your fingers you will know that you are near the spring. It is but a little way from here."

Simon had heard ere this of such ways of finding water, though in his country folk did the business rather with witch-hazel than myrtle; yet he had little doubt but that Argathona knew her woodland ways, and he took the bough from her hands and made at the top of his speed for the forest.

LIKE UNTO ADONIS

Argathona, bending on one knee over the wounded man, lifted his shoulders with firm, supple fingers upon the other knee, and, tenderly supporting the bruised head with one hand, breathed quickly and repeatedly upon his parted lips. The breath of those who are deathless can fan the dying flame of the lamp of life till it burns again serenely. As she worked thus, tending a mortal man for the first time, touching the curling young head and the smooth young skin, unwonted tremors stirred her and unwonted fancies fumed. "If it were not for the red blood," she thought, "surely this youth might be of kin with the immortal gods. Adonis must have looked so when he lay with his life-blood dabbling the brake and reddening the petals of the roses, and widowed Aphrodite wept."

There were tears in Argathona's eyes as she thought thus, and they fell warm upon the cold face and kindled color in it, for the tears of those that are deathless quicken the flesh as the rains from heaven quicken the earth. After a little the youth opened his eyes and looked up in wonder at the beautiful, sad face that compassionated him, the beautiful body that neighbored him.

"Who are you?" he asked, faintly, wondering where he was, for his wits were still wool-gathering, and wondering why his voice sounded so weak and foolish to him, as voices sometimes sound in dreams.

"I am--" Argathona began, and faltered. She thought that she would not again tell a stranger the truth about herself and be doubted, as Simon had doubted her, so she changed her purpose a little and went on:

"I am a woman, and I live in this wood."

Rainouart struggled somewhat to get up, for it vexed his strength exceedingly to feel helpless and it fretted his courtesy to trouble a woman with such care of him. But Argathona gently laid a hand upon his breast, and for all his strength he could not resist that pressure, and she kept him pillowed on her knee. He put a hand that seemed unusually clumsy to his aching head, and then stared in amazement at his naked chest and weakly strove to claw his coat together. Argathona whispered to him very softly, and he understood her without marvelling, being unable for the moment to marvel at anything.

"Robbers set on you--wounded you."

Again Rainouart struggled to rise.

"Now I remember," he said, fiercely; and looking about him, though it hurt him much to move his head, he saw how his sword lay on the grass a-nigh him, and he made a grab for the weapon. But Argathona put her beautiful, strong arms about him, and held him thus while she whispered motherly to him, as children have whispered to their dolls since the first child played with the first mandrake:

"You must keep still; you are sorely hurt, but I have stanched the blood."

Rainouart's wits were none too muddled to forget reverence. He stooped his head and kissed the girl's hands where they met about his breast. The touch of his lips upon her seemed to sting her virgin flesh through to the pure heart, and she unclasped her hands with a little moan. Rainouart looked up at her.

"Why do you cry out? Why do you withdraw your hands? My gratitude would never offend you."