od send you may make a better scullion than a follower!"
Then, vaulting over the wall, "Attend me, some half-dozen of you," I
commanded, and stepped out briskly towards the barn.

As the weather-beaten old door creaked upon its rusty hinges, we were
greeted by a groan from within, and with it the soft rustle of straw
that is being moved. Surprised, I halted, and waited whilst one of my
men kindled a light in the lanthorn that he carried.

By its rays we beheld a pitiable sight in a corner of that building. A
man, quite young and of a tall and vigorous frame, lay stretched upon
the straw. He was fully dressed even to his great riding-boots, and
from the loose manner in which his back-and-breast hung now upon him,
it would seem as if he had been making shift to divest himself of his
armour, but had lacked the strength to complete the task. Beside him
lay a feathered headpiece and a sword attached to a richly broidered
baldrick. All about him the straw was clotted with brown, viscous
patches of blood. The doublet which had been of sky-blue velvet was all
sodden and stained, and inspection showed us that he had been wounded in
the right side, between the straps of his breastplate.

As we stood about him now, a silent, pitying group, appearing fantastic,
perhaps, by the dim light of that single lanthorn, he attempted to raise
his head, and then with a groan he dropped it back upon the straw that
pillowed it. From out of a face white, as in death, and drawn with
haggard lines of pain, a pair of great lustrous blue eyes were turned
upon us, abject and pitiful as the gaze of a dumb beast that is stricken
mortally.

It needed no acuteness to apprehend that we had before us one of
yesterday's defeated warriors; one who had spent his last strength in
creeping hither to get his dying done in peace. Lest our presence
should add fear to the agony already upon him, I knelt beside him in the
blood-smeared straw, and, raising his head, I pillowed it upon my arm.

"Have no fear," said I reassuringly. "We are friends. Do you
understand?"

The faint smile that played for a second on his lips and lighted his
countenance would have told me that he understood, even had I not caught
his words, faint as a sigh "Merci, monsieur." He nestled his head into
the crook of my arm. "Water--for the love of God!" he gasped, to add in
a groan, "Je me meurs, monsieur."

Assisted by a couple of knaves, Ganymede went about attending to the
rebel at o