"For the lieutenant," she answered when she was questioned.
She guessed that such was Dick Fowell's rank, and she hoped that it was no lie she told, even though the man should believe that it was for Lieutenant Crashaw or Lieutenant Digby that she had been sent to fetch the wine and water.
From the same man she begged a great leathern bottle, and this she filled with water at the well in the middle of the courtyard. As she drew the water, she looked about her. Above her head the stars were shining cold, and far away, across the walls, upon the hills that lay to eastward, she could see the ruddy fires where the rebels lay encamped.
With the bottle and the flasket Merrylips hurried back to the little paved court. She sought out the form that she had left yesterday by the wall of the herb garden. She pushed it beneath the window of the wash-house, and climbing upon it, soon had scrambled back into Dick Fowell's prison.
She held the flasket to his lips, and he drank, with long breaths of content. Then, in a dark corner, she stripped off her shirt and replaced her doublet and her leathern coat upon her bared shoulders. With a rag torn from the shirt she washed the dust and blood from Dick Fowell's face, and cleansed the wound on his head, as well as she was able. Then she bandaged the hurt place with strips of the shirt and she gave him again to drink from the flasket. After that she could do nothing but sit by him upon the paved floor, and when he muttered, half delirious, as once or twice he did, try to quiet him, with her hand against his cheek.
The light flickered and faded in the wash-house, as the torches in the courtyard died down. Once, in the west, a burst of firing rattled out, and sank again to deeper silence. Through the western window came the chill light of the setting moon. Merrylips had dozed for a moment, perhaps, but she roused at the sound of a bolt withdrawn. She looked up, and in the open doorway she saw Miles Digby stand.
Yet she was not afraid. She kept her place, on her knees, at Fowell's side, with her hand upon his hand, and "Hush!" she said to him, for he had stirred uneasily, as if he, too, had caught the sound of Digby's coming. Across his helpless body she looked at Digby.
"He is hurt. Thou must not waken him," she said.
