What is this? you
are wounded! you are wounded!"
"Not I."
"He is wounded; miserable that I am!"
"Be calm, Denys. I am not touched; I feel no pain anywhere."
"You? you only feel when another is hurt," cried Denys, with great
emotion; and throwing himself on his knees, he examined Gerard's leg
with glistening eyes.
"Quick! quick! before it stiffens," he cried, and hurried him on.
"Who makes the coil about nothing now?" inquired Gerard composedly.
Denys's reply was a very indirect one.
"Be pleased to note," said he, "that I have a bad heart. You were man
enough to save my life, yet I must sneer at you, a novice in war. Was
not I a novice once myself? Then you fainted from a wound, and I thought
you swooned for fear, and called you a milksop. Briefly, I have a bad
tongue and a bad heart."
"Denys!"
"Plait-il?"
"You lie."
"You are very good to say so, little one, and I am eternally obliged to
you," mumbled the remorseful Denys.
Ere they had walked many furlongs, the muscles of the wounded leg
contracted and stiffened, till presently Gerard could only just put his
toe to the ground, and that with great pain.
At last he could bear it no longer.
"Let me lie down and die," he groaned, "for this is intolerable."
Denys represented that it was afternoon, and the nights were now frosty;
and cold and hunger ill companions; and that it would be unreasonable
to lose heart, a certain great personage being notoriously defunct.
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