"Are you hurt?" he said, lifting me.
"Not much,—but the horse—how about him?" I asked.
"Not much either—for he has gone."
And indeed he had picked himself up and fled into the mist towards the foe.
"Mount behind me," said Alan, helping me up. Then I groaned and reeled against him. My ankle was sorely bruised by a rock on which it had been dashed in my fall, and at that time I thought it was broken, for I could not stand.
"Hold up, and I will help you mount," said Alan. And then the Galloway men swarmed out of the fog again, cautiously at first. Some waft of wind had thinned the hanging clouds for a moment, and Alan saw them sooner than before.
"Leave me—warn the camp," I said.
"The honour of a De Govet——"
And that was the last I heard of what Alan was about to say, for with the first step towards the saddle I fainted.
When I came to, with the cold air rushing on me, the[!-- [Pg 338] --] first thing I saw was Alan's steadfast face above me, stern set and anxious, but unfaltering in gaze forward, and under me bounded the free stride of his great charger as though the double burden was nothing. Alan's left arm was round me, and I was across his saddle, while he was mounted behind it. He had no helm, and a stream of blood was across his face, and an arrow, caught by the point in the rings of his mail, rattled from his breast. His lance was gone, and his red sword hung by the sling from his wrist as he managed the bridle.