"In Greek, sir! Speak to them in Greek, for they are all Greeks. That is why they are afraid. All Greeks are afraid."
The interpreter began to speak in Greek, clear and loud, but no sound came. Yet when Gilbert put his ear to the door he thought that he heard something like a child's moaning. It had a sound of pain in it, and his blood rose at the thought that some weak creature was being hurt. So he took little Alric's leathern belt, such as grooms wear, and bound it round his hand to guard the flesh, and he struck the door where the leaves joined in the middle, once and twice and three times, and it began to open inward, so that they could see the iron bolt bent half double. Then with his shoulder he forced it in, so that the bolt slipped from the socket, and the leaves flew open.
There was a little court within, around which the house was built, with a well for rain-water in the middle, after the fashion that was half Roman and half Eastern. Gilbert went in, and bade all be silent that he might hear whence the moaning came; for it was more distinct now, and it seemed to come from the well, with a little splashing of water; so he went and looked down, and when he saw what was there he cried aloud for fear.
For there he saw an upturned face, half dead, with a white thing bound across the mouth, and hands tied together, and struggling to strike the water, but heavily weighted and it was the face of Beatrix, two fathoms below him. There were holes opposite each other, in the two sides of the well, for a man's hands and feet, for climbing down into the cistern; and Gilbert lost no moment, but began to descend at once yet long before he had got the bound hands together in his own, stooping and himself in peril of falling, the face had sunk below the bubbling water.
With his feet firmly planted in the holes, and standing as it might be astride of the well, he lifted the girl up and though she was so slight, it was one of the hardest things he ever had to do, for her clothes were full of water, and he was at a disadvantage; nor could his men help him till he had raised her so high that he could rest her weight on his right knee and against his own body. Then the others climbed down and slipped their belts under her arms, and she was taken out in safety and laid upon the pavement of the little court. And then the Jewish boy went to call his mother from the house of her sister, where they two had gone to live, for Beatrix had need of a woman.
Gilbert knelt down and laid her head upon Dunstan's coat folded together, and covered her with his own mantle, gazing into the unconscious face, small and pale and pitiful, and he remembered how he had seen it last in Antioch, full of anger and unbelief, so that he had turned and left what he loved just when evil was at hands and his heart stood still, and then smote him in his breast, and stood still again, as the smith's hammer is poised in the air between the strokes.
Beatrix did not move and seemed not to breathe, lying as one dead, and suddenly Gilbert believed that there was no life left in her. He tried to speak to Dunstan, but he could make no sound, for his tongue and his throat were suddenly parched and paralyzed, so that he was dumb in his grief; but he took the small white hands, with the wrists all cut by the cords, and folded them upon the breast, and he took his cross— hilted dagger with its sheath, and laid it between the hands for a cross, and gently tried to close the half-opened eyes.
Then, when Dunstan saw what his master meant, he touched him on the shoulder and spoke to him.
"She is not dead," he said.
Gilbert started and looked up at him, and saw that he was in earnest; but the man's lean face was drawn with anxiety.
"Sir," said Dunstan, "will you let me touch the Lady Beatrix?"
The knight's brow darkened, for that a churl's hands should touch a high-born lady's face seemed to him something monstrous and against nature; but in the moment he had forgotten something.
"She is quite dead," he tried to say.
Then Dunstan spoke sadly, kneeling down beside her.
"This lady is half my sister," he said. "I have some skill with half— drowned persons. Let me save her, sir, unless we are to let her die before our eyes. A gipsy taught me what to do."
The cloud passed from Gilbert's face, but still he did not believe.
"In heaven's name, do what you can, try what you know, and quickly!" he said.
"Help me, then," said Dunstan.
So he did as all skilled persons know how to do with half-drowned people, though only the gipsies knew it then. They turned her body gently so that the clear water ran from her parted lips, and laying her down again, they took her arms and drew them over her head, stretched them out, and brought them down to her sides, again and again, so as to make her breathe, and the breath was drawn in and breathed out again with a delicate foam that clung to her lips.
Still Sir Gilbert did not believe, and though he helped his man, in the despair of the instant, and in the horror of losing the least chance of life, it all seemed to him a desecration of the most dear dead, and more than once he would have let the poor little arm rest, rather than make it limply follow the motion Dunstan gave to the other.
"She is quite, quite dead," he said again.
"She is alive," answered Dunstan; "stop not now one moment, or we shall lose her."
His dark face glowed, and his unwinking eyes watched her face for the least sign of life. Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, passed, and time seemed facing death-the swift against the immovable and eternal. Gilbert, the strong and masterful in fight, humbly and anxiously watched his man's looks for the signs of hope, as if Dunstan had been the wisest physician of all mankind; and indeed in that day there were few physicians who knew how to do what the man was doing. And at last the glow in his face began to fade, and Gilbert's heart sank, and the horror of so disturbing the dead came upon him tenfold, so that he let the slender arm rest on the stones, and sighed. But Dunstan cried out fiercely to him.
"For your life, go on! She is alive! See! See!"
And even as Gilbert sadly shook his head in the last collapse of belief, the long lashes quivered a little with the lids and were still, and quivered again, and then again, and the eyes opened wide and staring, but broad awake; and then the delicate body shook and was half convulsed by the miracle of life restored, and the slight arms quickened with nervous strength, resisting the men's strong hands, and a choking cough brought the bright colour to the pale cheeks.
Then Gilbert lifted her from the pavement to the stone rim of the well, that she might breathe better, and presently the choking ceased, so that she lay quite still with her head against his breast, and her weight in his arms. But still she did not speak, and the man's heart beat furiously with joy, and then stood still in fear, lest the worst should come again, whereof there was no danger; but he did not know, and Dunstan and Alric were suddenly gone, seeking wine in the house. Just when the girl seemed to be sinking into a swoon they brought a short draught of Syrian wine in an earthen cup; for little Alric was not wise, but he would have found wine in the sandy desert, and he had gone straight to a corner where a leathern bottle with a wooden plug was hung up in a cool place.
Beatrix drank, and revived again, and looked up to Gilbert.
"I knew you would come," she said faintly, and she smiled, but Gilbert could not speak.
By this time the Jewish boy had brought his mother, and they carried the girl into a room, and the woman took care of her kindly, fearing lest a Christian should die in her husband's house, and also lest she should not be paid the value of the rent, but with womanly gentleness also, wrapping her in dry clothes of her own before she laid her to rest.
For Arnold de Curboil's servants had been all Greeks, and when they had learned that their master had been killed in the night, they had bolted and barred the house, and had bound Beatrix and her Norman tirewoman hand and foot and gagged their mouths with cloths, in order that they might carry off the rich plunder, but at first they had not meant to kill the women. Only when they were just about to slip away, one at a time, so as to escape notice, they held a council, and the most of them said that it would be better to throw the women into the well, lest either of them should help the other, and getting loose, escape from the house and cause a pursuit. So they threw the Norman woman down first, and when they saw that she sank the third time, being drowned, they threw Beatrix after her. But the well was not so deep as they had thought, and was narrow, so that Beatrix had kept her head above the water a long time, her feet just touching the body of her drowned servant. And in this way the faithful woman had saved her mistress after she was dead. When this was known, they took her from the well and bore her to burial without the city, while Beatrix was asleep.