It may be doubted if the instincts of the earth-born
can ever pierce the trappings of a knight-at-arms.
They trust in emotions which such gear is designed
to hide or transfigure. Isoult, observe, had caught
Prosper out of his harness, when before the face of
the sky she had thrilled him to pity. But when
once he had stooped to her, for the very fact, she
made haste to set him up on high in her heart, and
in more seemly guise. There and thenceforward
he stood on his pedestal figured, not as a pitiful
saviour (whom a girl must be taught to worship), but
as an armed god who suffered her homage. She was
no better (or no worse, if you will) than the rest
of her sex in this, that she loved to love, and was
bewildered to be loved. So she would never get
him out of armour again. Her god might not stoop.
WANMEETING CRIES, ‘HA! SAINT JAMES!’
The story returns to Prosper le Gai and his broken
head. The blow had been sharp, but Peering Pool
was sharper. It brought him to consciousness,
of a sort sufficient to give him a disrelish for drowning.
Lucky for him he was unarmed. He found himself
swimming, paddling, rolling at random; he swallowed
quantities of water, and liked drowning none the better.
By the little light there was he could make out the
line of the dark hull of Goltres, by the little wit
he had he remembered that the water-gate was midway
the building or thereabouts. He turned his face
to the wall and, half clinging, half swimming, edged
along it till he reached port. The last ebb of
his strength sufficed to drag him up the stair; then
he floated off into blankness again.
When he stirred he was stiff, and near blind with
fever. A cold light silvered the pool; it was
not yet dawn. His plight was pitiable. He
ached and shivered and burned, he drowsed and muttered,
dreamed horribly, sweated and was cold, shuddered
and was hot. One of his arms he could not lift
at all; at one of his sides, there was a great stiff
cake of cloth and blood and water. He became light-headed,
sang, shouted, raved, swore, prayed.
“To me, to me, Isoult! Ah, dogs of the
devil, this to a young maid! Yes, madam, the
Lady Isoult, and my wife. Love her! O God,
I love her at last. Hounded, hounded, hounded
out! Love of Christ, how I love her! Bailiff,
Galors will come—a white-faced, sullen dog.
Cut him down, bailiff, without mercy, for he hath
shown no mercy. The man in the wood—ha!
dead—Salomon de Born. Green froth on
his lips—fie, poison! She has killed
Galors’ only son. Galors, she has poisoned
him —oh, mercy, mercy, Lord, must I die?”
And then with tears, and the whining of a child—“Isoult,
Isoult, Isoult!”
In tears his delirium spent itself, and again he was
still, in a broken sleep. The sun rose, the sky
warmed itself and glowed, the crispy waves of Peering
Pool glittered, the white burden it bore floated face
upwards, an object of interest and suspicion for the
coots; soon a ray of generous heat shot obliquely down
upon the sleeper on the stairs. Prosper woke
again, stretched, and yawned. Most of his pains
seemed now to centre in the pit of his stomach, a
familiar grief. Prosper was hungry.
