They had now entered the courtyard. At the sight of the little procession--the four stalwart men walking in time, and the pale face of the insensible boy--the dancers all stopped, and came crowding round; but at a word from Sir John Trenchard, and a polite request from the Captain of the Wight to continue their festivity, the guests resumed their dancing, only Yolande insisted on going into the hall with her injured cousin, and old Sir William Lisle attended her. The leech now carefully examined the wound, and his verdict was anxiously awaited.
The usual remedies were resorted to for restoring animation, and, to the joy of Yolande, after a little quiver of the eyelids, they slowly opened, and Ralph once more looked upon the world.
The leech, seeing that all immediate danger was over, and that the hæmorrhage was yielding to the treatment, directed a bed to be made ready in a room adjoining the hall, and then dilated upon the excellencies of his remedies, to the great impatience of Yolande.
"But, Master Leech, will he get well? Is it a dangerous wound?"
"Nay, fair Mistress Lisle, science answereth not such bold questions as these but with silence. To get well is in the hands of God; we can but speak of how science and medicine knoweth what is the best course to adopt. 'Tis well known to those admitted to the occult arcana of the heavenly influences that the celestial bodies exercise a strange influence on our poor bodies of clay. Sol draweth unto him during the day the blood of our systems, gentle Mater Nox appeaseth the heat of our sanguine flow, and settleth the blood in our extremities. As at the third hour the bile subsideth, so that its acrid properties be not blended with the flow of the blood, so also at the second hour the atrabilis subsides, and in the eventime the phlegm abateth--"
"Marry, Master Surgeon Barber, thy discourse causeth my head to buzz. Tell me plainly an thou canst, is my cousin in danger of death?"
"Noble lady, to give a short answer becometh not the dignity of my art. There are hopes in that chaste Luna is in the ascendant, and Æsculapius ruleth the seventh house, that what is natheless a deadly thrust may yield to my remedies. But as the learned Averroes--than whom my old master, the worshipful Master Thomas Morstede, knew no--"
"Beshrew me, Master Barber, thou wilt drive me mad!" cried the impatient Yolande. "Canst thou not answer me plainly, instead of talking thy jaw-breaking jargon?"
But the leech or barber was incensed at this want of respect, especially coming from a young lady, and he briefly replied he must wait before giving an opinion until Aldeboran reached the third house.
Compelled to be satisfied with this answer, Yolande saw her cousin moved to his new couch, and then, recognising the absolute necessity of not disturbing him, she returned to the festivities, over which a cloud had been cast by this strange event.