“Solemnly—on my word as a Hebrew. But—?”
With another laugh the boy interrupted him, turned, and disappeared in the woods.
“A strange, though a good and affectionate boy,” remarked Bladud when the Hebrew returned. “What said he?”
“He bade me examine your arm, and tell him what I think of it on his return.”
“That is of a piece with all the dear boy’s conduct,” returned the prince. “You have no idea what a kind nurse he has been to me, at a time when I was helpless with fever. Indeed, if I had not been helpless and delirious, I would not have allowed him to come near me. You have known him before, it seems?”
“Yes; I have known him for some time.”
From this point the prince pushed the Hebrew with questions, which the latter—bearing in remembrance the sharpness of Gadarn’s sword, and the solemnity of his promise—did his best to evade, and eventually succeeded in turning the conversation by questioning Bladud as to his intercourse with the hunter of the Swamp, and his mode of life since his arrival in that region. Then he proceeded to examine the arm critically.
“It is a wonderful cure,” he said, after a minute inspection. “Almost miraculous.”
“Cure!” exclaimed the prince. “Do you, then, think me cured?”
“Indeed I do—at least, very nearly so. I have had some experience of your complaint in the East, and it seems to me that a perfect cure is at most certain—if it has not been already effected.”