The Chevalier's eyes danced at the recollection.
"'T was our preacher friend who sheared him. I hold it a master-stroke; but for a spear-butt on the way it would have cleft the fellow into two equal parts. Have you seen aught of Eloise since the fight?"
"She lies yonder against the wall at my left, and remains unhurt, I think. I will make effort to turn over, and have speech with her."
So securely had I been bound with coarse grass rope, I found it no small task to change the position of my body sufficiently to peer about the corner of intervening rock, and clearly perceive my lady. She was reclining in a half sitting posture well within the darker shadow, bound as were the rest of us.
"You remain uninjured, I trust, Madame?" I asked gently, and it heartened me to observe the smile with which she instantly glanced up at sound of my voice.
"No blow has touched me," was her immediate response, "yet I suffer noticing the stains of blood disfiguring both you and my husband. Are the wounds serious ones?"
"Nay, mere scratches of the flesh, to heal in a week. Why did you waste your last shot on that savage who would have struck me? It was not the will of De Noyan that it be expended thus."
"You must have formed a poor conception of me, Geoffrey Benteen," she answered, as if my words pained her, "if you suppose I value my life more highly than your own. But for my solicitation you would never have been in such stress, and, whatever else may be true, Eloise de Noyan is not one accustomed to deserting her friends."
"Yet there are fates possible to a woman more to be dreaded than death."
"Ay, and frontier bred, I know it well, yet none so bad as would have been the knowledge that I was guilty of ingratitude. My life, my honor, are in the care of God, Geoffrey, and if I remain grateful for aught this day, it is that my shot proved timely, saving you from that blow. Tell me, was it not a woman at whose command the combat ceased?"