"Count Tilly does not make war upon girls!" said Nigel angrily, striding across and kneeling beside the girl. "Bring water, linen, and salve!" Gently he laid her flat upon the floor with a cushion beneath her head. Quickly he unfastened the neckerchief and staunched the blood till he could see the wound, of what width it was, and how the blood welled up into its mouth. Then he looked at the dagger.
"Blick! Look you here! A flesh wound! A thumbnail's depth? What say you?"
"Aye, is it! More fright than hurt! A barber's stitch of a silk thread. A bandage and salve! 'Tis all she needs."
Nigel looked up. The lady of the misty eyes looked down.
"She lives!" said he. "You have but to wash the wound, put in three stitches, lay salve upon it and a bandage of linen. She will not bleed to death this time."
The woman knelt down and did as she was bidden with deft long fingers and without a word.
Before the bandage was made secure the girl Elspeth opened her eyes and her gaze fell first upon Nigel. A red flush came to her cheek, perhaps because of her neck lying so uncovered before a man, perhaps by reason of other thoughts. And as the colour natural to her face, a healthy rosy hue, came back, Nigel on his part gave a little start of surprise and turned away. He wondered that he had not known her again. Yesterday she had worn a healthy ruddiness in her cheeks and a white dress upon her jolly plump form. To-day with the absolute pallor of her swoon and her sombre grey clothes his eyes had been cheated, or was it that his eyes had lost something of their natural sharpness in the duello with those others of the race of eagles?
The service rendered to her golden-haired friend, the snowy neck once more shrouded in its covering kerchief, the dark lady resumed her haughty aloofness. A flash had broken through the mists of her eyes, as a passing gleam of the moon breaks for an instant through fast scudding clouds, when she saw the recognition pass. Perhaps she wondered. Elspeth was of the burgher-class, well-to-do it might be, and she who looked was noble by every outward token, and might well disregard such affairs as brought a poor gentleman of the sword, and an outlander to boot, into contact with a burgher-maiden at the sack of Magdeburg.