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