“But that does not mean that I would not help you,” she went on. “See this is what we must do. Somehow or other we must get back to the other side and first I ought to bandage your head. Have you hurt yourself anywhere else?” She looked him up and down as she spoke. “Oh, your ankle is all swollen and bleeding where you have torn your hose; we must try and do something for that.”
“That can wait for the present,” he said, glancing apprehensively at his shoes, which mercifully were still uninjured on his feet; “the worst thing is that I think that I have broken my collar bone. But before we do anything I must try and help you bandage your shoulder more satisfactorily for it is bleeding very badly. That will not be very easy,” he added, smiling, “as I have only one arm and you yourself cannot reach it.”
She let him try and between them they managed it somehow, and he wondered again as he tenderly manipulated the bandage, how such a little fragile thing could be undertaking such a strenuous task.
“I have not time to explain,” said Aline, “but there is a secret chamber in the Hall where you could be hidden, but we could not possibly get you there until it is dark. There is, however, a hollow tree on the other side where we sometimes play, in which you can sit with your feet outside and they can be covered up with grass and leaves. It is perhaps a little dangerous but I see no other way if your life is to be saved. Can you bend your arm at all?” she went on. “Has it any strength in it?”
“Well, somehow or other we have to swim back across that river; and it is lucky that it is enormously easier from this side. The rapids set towards this bank and on the other side there is a sort of backwater opposite to where the rapids begin on this. We can also with very little danger venture to start some twenty yards higher up than I did when I was coming.”
“But I do not think I could swim at all in that rush with only one arm, and in any case you will have to go round; you must not dream of attempting to swim that water again.”
With all her gentleness there was something very queenly about Aline. She lifted her head and said,--“We must both go and you must somehow hold on to me and there is no more to be said.”