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.
"Pest!" said the youth, "how hungry I am. I can do nothing till I have
eaten."
He tried to get up, and did succeed in raising himself on all fours.
But for the life of him he could do no more. He sat down again and
thought about eating. He remembered the bread and olives, the not
unkindly red wine of the night before. Then he remembered Spiridion,
dispenser of meat and many questions.