CHAPTER XLIX
Bearing the casket with the veil and phial therein, Rosamunde passed out of the chapel of Holy Guard, down many a gallery and winding stair, to the room where Tristan slept. The look of awe still possessed her face, filling her eyes with solemn shadows, loosening the curves of her proud mouth. The lamp’s light played upon her hair as the west wind swayed it to and fro like golden threads upon the cloak of night.
Coming once more to the Abbess’s room, she found Tristan sleeping even as she had left him. A faint grey haze hung in the east, for the dawn was coming up over the woods and the waters of the Gloire. Rosamunde set the lamp on the sconce in the wall, and laid the casket on the great carved chair. With a rush of tenderness, she stooped and looked into Tristan’s face, hung over him with arms outstretched, as though her whole soul gave him its blessing.
Then, with her face towards the east, she knelt down by the window, her hands folded upon her breast. Out of the night she had struggled to meet the broadening glory of the dawn. Never before had Rosamunde prayed as she prayed that hour in Holy Guard. Her soul seemed borne on wings of fire upwards, ever upwards, till the heavy world grew bright in the beams of the rising sun. Ever she seemed to strive with God, and in the strife her own weak faith caught a trebled courage from her prayers. Once more the welkin seemed to wake to the deep mysteries of life and love. The woods grew green, the waters shone, the clouds gleamed white against the blue. The voice of the dawn rang loud and clear, bidding the phantoms of the night depart.
A new light shone on Rosamunde’s face, as though hope was reborn within her heart. She rose up from before the eastern window, took the casket in her hands, and knelt down at the side of Tristan’s bed. She smiled as she turned the coverlet aside, and began to cut the linen bands stained with the blood that still ebbed through. So deep was the man’s sleep that he slumbered on till she turned the last band from the clotted wound and saw the red stream oozing up.
Then Tristan awoke. His hands moved restlessly to and fro, and Rosamunde, bending over his body, caught them and held them fast in hers.
“Tristan,” she said, with her splendid hair falling around his haggard face.
His eyes questioned hers with a strange wistfulness, and he breathed deeply, but did not speak.
“Tristan,” she said again, with her mouth close to him, as he lay and looked at her like a child, “I have dreamed a dream, and God has given me back your life. This I believe, for my faith has returned.”
“Rosamunde,” he said, with a great sigh.
“Lie still,” she whispered, “while I dress your wound with the gifts God has given me in the night.”
“God?” he asked her.
“Even so,” she answered, “for as I slept the Christ appeared and bade me believe, and in my dream he showed me the place in the chapel above us where relics were buried. Yet, if this dream fails me at this hour, I shall never believe in Heaven more.”
Therewith she kissed him on the lips, with tears brimming in her eyes. Tristan watched her silently as she took the phial and poured the red liquid into the wound. Mingling there with the living blood, it sent forth an odour through the room as though all the spices of the East, spikenard and myrrh and wondrous balms, had spent their perfumes on the air. Then Rosamunde took the mystic veil, and pressed it deep into the wound, where it grew red with Tristan’s blood.
Leaning back against the chair, she half sat, half knelt beside the bed, watching the man with all her soul. The streaming sunlight flooded in, playing upon Tristan’s face with its hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. In either heart was poised the chance of life and death that summer dawn.
Very slowly the minutes passed, as though Time halted in his stride. The lamp had burnt out on the wall, and birds were awake in the thickets beneath, their shrill orisons greeting the dawn. Rosamunde, filled with unrest, watched no longer beside the bed, but rose and paced from wall to wall, gazing out through the ruined window at the Gloire gleaming amid the woods. For the moment she dared not look at Tristan, lest the last hope should prove but a dream. A cold hand seemed on her bosom, pressing heavily on her heart, while the distant clamour of the sea came like a dirge into her ears.
Suddenly Tristan called to her, his voice strong and resonant as of old, not the half moan of a dying man.
“Hither, Rosamunde,” he said; “come to me. What miracle is this?”
She turned instantly and was at his side, bending over him with her eyes afire. And lo, the blood had ceased to flow, and the red veil seemed clotted fast over the place where the barb was buried. There was a faint colour on Tristan’s cheeks, and his eyes had the lustre they had lost of late. Rosamunde knelt and gazed at his face, as though half fearful of trusting the truth.
Then with a low cry she bowed her head, and laid her hands on the man’s shoulders.
“Tristan, you will live,” she said.
“There is strange strength in me.”
“The dream, the dream!”
“No longer does the warm blood ebb.”
She raised herself from Tristan’s body and knelt with arms stretched towards the east, a great glory lighting her face.