The little page gave an expostulating cry.
“Hold the child an instant, John,” gasped Richard, raising it towards his younger friend; “I will but recover breath, and then land and seek out her friends.”
“How is this?” said a voice above them; and looking up, they found that while all had been absorbed in the rescue, the Prince, with his little son in his arms and his wife hanging on his arm, had come to the stone stairs, and was looking down. “Richard overboard!”
“A child fell over the bank, my Lord,” eagerly shouted the little John, with cap in hand, “and he swam out to pick it up.”
“Into the barge instantly, Richard,” commanded the Prince. “’Tis as much as his life is worth to remain in this cold stream!”
And truly Richard was beginning to feel as much. He was assisted in by two of the oarsmen, and the barge then putting towards the steps, the Princess was handed into her place, and began instantly to ask after the poor child. It had not been long enough in the water to lose its consciousness, though it had hitherto been too much frightened to cry; but it no sooner opened a wide pair of dark eyes to find itself in strange hands, than it set up a lamentable wail, calling in broken accents for “Da-da.”
“Let me take it ashore at once, gracious lady,” said Richard, revived by a draught of wine from the stores provided for the long day; “I will find its friends.”
“Nay,” said the Princess, “it were frenzy to take it thus in its wet garments; and frenzy to remain in thine, Richard.” As she spoke, the Prince and the other persons of the suite had embarked, and the barge was pushing away from the steps. “Give the child to me,” she added, holding out her arms, and disregarding a remonstrance from one of her ladies, disregarding too the sobs and struggles of the child, whom she strove to soothe, while hastily removing the little thing’s soaked blue frock and hood, and wrapping it up in a warm woollen cloak. “It is a pretty little maiden,” she said, “and not ill cared for. Some mother’s heart must be bursting for her!—Hush thee! hush thee, little one; we will take thee home and clothe thee, and then thou shalt go to thy mother,” she added, in better English than she had spoken four years earlier in Alton Wood. But the child still cried for her da-da, and the Princess asked again, “What is thy father’s name, little maid?”
“Père,” she answered, with a peculiar accent that made the Prince say, “That is a Provençal tongue.”
“They are Provençal eyes likewise,” added Eleanor. “See how like their hue is to Richard’s own;” and in Provençal she repeated the question what the father’s name and the child’s own might be. But “Père” again, and “Bessee, pretty Bessee,” was all the answer she obtained, the last in unmistakable English.