Into Herrick's oblivion there crept dreams presently. No longer was the rope tightening round his throat; his limbs began to lose their numbness, and a grateful sensation of warmth ran through them. There was movement about him; hands, gentle hands, touched him; and eyes looked steadily at him—not the eyes of one who was ready to strike with a knife, not the eyes of an old hag. These were beautiful eyes, with kindness in them, the eyes of a woman who had compassion. They were surely a woman's fingers, too, which had gently eased the rope tightening at his throat.
"His is more a weary sleep than exhaustion now."
The voice came suddenly to the dreamer's ears out of the darkness. Then for an instant there was light about him, dancing flames full of life, and huge, distorted shadows moving over him. Contentment was here, and sleep—sleep with no more dreams in it.
When he opened his eyes again, they fell upon a small square patch of daylight; then, turning his head, he saw a red glow a few paces from him, and the fragrance of burning peat was in his nostrils. He did not seem to be dreaming now, yet he knew not where he was, nor how he had come there. He remembered riding hard. Where? Why? Some run over difficult country with the hounds in full cry! He had been leading the field; that he recollected, and then—a rope at his throat. In a flash it came back to him—the escape, the recapture, the wounded man, the threatening knife, the bound, aching limbs, the star above him in the night sky. What had happened since? Where was he?
He raised himself on his elbow, and the movement disturbed a figure sitting near the peat fire.
"So you are awake at last?"
"Lemasle!" said Herrick as the man bent over him.
"Ay, the same; ready for another fight against odds, if need be, but sore weary of watching a sick man. The gods gave me not the gift of nursing."
"Is it the dawn coming in at the window yonder?" Herrick asked.
"Yes; and a plaguey wet dawn, too. You can hear the rain on the roof, hear it hissing as it falls down the chimney onto the peat. It rained all night and all yesterday."