The Count of Nullepart also paid me a very civil compliment in his charming manner. But, as we rode knee to knee through the darkness, a strange silence fell upon our delightful friend. The path grew broken and uncertain, so that we were thrown about in our saddles; and the gay wisdom and laughter of our companion, which had done so much to lighten our journey, was no longer to be heard. Never had I known this gentle maker of harmony addict himself to so much silence.
And then, quite suddenly, without sign or word or exclamation, the Count of Nullepart fell from his horse.
CHAPTER XXIII
OF THE COUNT OF NULLEPART’S EXTREMITY
It was with the deepest concern, for we had both come to love our companion, that Sir Richard Pendragon and I dismounted and lifted up the prostrate form in our arms. In the heavy darkness of the night, which was rendered more extreme by the shadows from the overhanging trees, we were at first at a loss to know what was the cause of this calamity.
Our fear that the Count of Nullepart was dead was dispelled immediately. He could be heard to breathe. Passing our hands over him, however, we discovered that his doublet was soaked with blood. Yet for some time we were not able to discover the seat of what was evidently a grievous injury. Indeed it was not until we had revived our senseless comrade by bathing his temples in some stagnant water that we found in a rut in the middle of the road that we were able to learn its position and extent. It was by this providential means that our unlucky friend was himself enabled to inform us.
“It is nothing,” he said. “It is not more than a scratch. I pray you, leave me, my friends, to my own devices, for upon my soul you have not a moment to spare. By now a mounted company is surely upon our heels.”
“Mounseer,” said the Englishman, with a delicacy of address of which I should not have deemed him to be capable, “I care not if all Spain is out and mounted on the strain Bucephalus. Do you suppose that one who hath the blood of kings under his doublet will leave you to the wolves. Where is your hurt, good Mounseer? We will look to it, if it please you.”
In spite of the courage of our friend, who protested that his hurt was nothing and that time was much, we kept to our determination to find his injury. He then allowed that he had had several inches of steel in his ribs. “But it is nought, my friends; the merest trifle I assure you,” he said as he staggered towards his horse.
All the same it was clear to us that if the Count of Nullepart was to continue his journey, means must be found to staunch the bleeding of his wound. Unhappily, we were without the implements of surgery; and the wound was so deep that our kerchiefs knotted together and coiled about it could not cope with the flow of blood.
In this pass the Englishman did a strange thing. It furnished a further proof of that genius for contrivance which above all things distinguished this strange individual. Without more ado he proceeded to disrobe himself. Stripping off his shirt, and all naked to the waist as he was, he tore that garment into ribands and wove the pieces tightly round the Count of Nullepart’s body. And so powerful was this ready-witted surgery that the wounded man vowed laughingly that the Englishman had checked not only his bleeding but the source of life itself.