Just then Lady Carleon’s senses returned, and opening her eyes she saw Sir Geoffrey, whom they had laid down upon another couch close to her.
“Oh, they told me that you were dead, husband,” she said, “crushed or swallowed in the earthquake! But I thank God they lied. Yet what ails you, sweetheart, that you do not stand upon your feet?”
“Little, dear wife, little,” he answered in a cheerful voice. “My foot is somewhat crushed, that is all. Still ‘tis true that had it not been for this brave knight and his squire I must have lain where I was till I perished.”
Now Lady Carleon raised herself slightly and looked at Hugh and Dick, who stood together, bewildered and overwhelmed.
“Heaven’s blessings be on your heads,” she exclaimed, “for these Venetians would surely have left him to his doom. Ah, I thought that it was you who must die to-day, but now I know it is I, and perchance my lord. Physician,” she added after a pause, “trouble not with me, for my hour has come; I feel it at my heart. Tend my lord there, who, unless this foul sickness takes him also, may yet be saved.”
So they carried them both to their own large sleeping chamber on the upper floor. There the surgeon set Sir Geoffrey’s broken bone skilfully enough, though when he saw the state of the crushed limb, he shook his head and said it would be best to cut it off. This, however, Sir Geoffrey would not suffer to be done.
“It will kill me, I am sure, or if not, then the pest which that ship, Light of the East, has brought here from Cyprus, will do its work on me. But I care nothing, for since you say that my wife must die I would die with her and be at rest.”
At sunset Lady Carleon died. Ere she passed away she sent for Hugh and Dick. Her bed by her command had been moved to an open window, for she seemed to crave air. By it was placed that of Sir Geoffrey so that the two of them could hold each other’s hand.
“I would die looking toward England, Sir Hugh,” she said, with a faint smile, “though alas! I may not sleep in that churchyard on the Sussex downs where I had hoped that I might lie at last. Now, Sir Hugh, I pray this of your Christian charity and by the English blood which runs in us, that you will swear to me that you and your squire will not leave my lord alone among these Southern folk, but that you will bide with him and nurse him till he recovers or dies, as God may will. Also that you will see me buried by the bones of my child—they will tell you where.”
“Wife,” broke in Sir Geoffrey, “this knight is not of our kin. Doubtless he has business elsewhere. How can he bide with me here, mayhap for weeks?”