Blanche had been long awake at Tristan’s side, watching the woods as they hurried by with the flower-filled valleys lying between. She had set her cloak to dry in the sun, and had spread her drenched hair over her shoulders. At the first lifting of Tristan’s lids she was quick to greet him with a smile and a word.
“Dawn,” he said; “how long have I slept? Are we nearer Holy Guard and the sea?”
“The men have rowed all night,” she answered him. “You have slept, Tristan, while we have watched.”
A strange smile played upon the man’s lips, the smile of one who remembered a dream, some shining forth of a mystic face from the shifting vapours of the night.
“I have dreamed a dream,” he said.
“Yes, Tristan,” she echoed.
“Methinks that I shall reach the sea and live to be carried into Holy Guard. Hark, whose voice is that? The steersman calls to us from the poop.”
One of Blanche’s men who steered the barge was pointing to where the tall woods were broken by a valley. Under a thick mist they could see the shining through of a goodly river, streaked and silvered by the sun. Its waters came fretting round a rocky point to merge into the bosom of the Gloire.
“It is the Lorient,” quoth Blanche, standing and looking under her hand.
Tristan half raised himself upon his elbow and gazed over the low bulwarks towards the woods. A tawny flood came flashing down to smite into the Gloire’s more silver breadth.