"
I did both as quickly as might be, and we bedded her on the floor,
stripping our coats to soften the stone flagging for her and trying by
all the means known to two unskilled soldier leeches to bring her to.
"Water!" said Dick; but when we had laved her face with that, and with
wine as well, without effect, we were well dismayed, I do assure you.
For all our efforts she lay as one dead; and neither of us could be
cold enough to pry her lips apart to play the drenching doctor with the
wine.
"Lord!" cried Dick, the sweat standing out upon his face in great drops;
"this is terrible! What shall we do?"
"Jeanne will know what to do," I asserted. "We must get her out of this
and up to her chamber."
Richard started to his feet and stooped to gather the dear body of her
in his arms. But in the act he paused and straightened himself to look
fixedly at me.
"Do you take her, Jack; she is--she is--your wife."
"Nay," said I, drawing back. "You are her own true lover; and could she
choose her bearer--"
"A murrain on your finickings!" he burst out. "She may die whilst we are
haggling over the right to help her. Take her up quick, man, and
begone!"
"But bethink you, Dick," I urged; "if you are taken, you have one chance
in ten of faring as an officer and a prisoner of war. For me 'tis a
spy's death as swift as they can drag me to it."
Now you will know, my dears, how much I loved these two when I could
twist a cord of such mean fiber to bind them closer together.
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