Gaston and Raymond had escaped with minor hurts; but John’s case was plainly serious, and the flow of blood had been very great before any help could reach him.  He was quite unconscious, and looked like death as he lay on the floor of the cave; and after fruitless efforts to revive him, the Prince commanded a rude litter to be made wherein he might be transported to the Palace by the huntsmen who had not taken part in the struggle, and were therefore least weary.  The horses were not very far away, and the rest of the wounded and the rescued captives could make shift to walk that far, and afterwards gain the Palace by the help of their sturdy steeds.

Thus it came about that Master Bernard de Brocas, who had believed the Prince and his party to be engaged in the harmless and (to them) safe sport of tracking and hunting a boar in the forest, was astounded beyond all power of speech by seeing a battered and ghastly procession enter the courtyard two hours before dusk, bearing in their midst a litter upon which lay the apparently inanimate form of his eldest nephew, his brother’s first-born and heir.

CHAPTER VII.  THE RECTOR’S HOUSE.

“It was well thought and boldly executed, my son,” said the King of England, as he looked with fatherly pride at his bright-faced boy.  “Thou wilt win thy spurs ere long, I doubt not, an thou goest on thus.  But it must be an exploit more worthy thy race and state that shall win thee the knighthood which thou dost rightly covet.  England’s Prince must be knighted upon some glorious battlefield —­ upon a day of victory that I trow will come ere long for thee and me.  And now to thy mother, boy, and ask her pardon for the fright thou madest her to suffer, when thy sisters betrayed to her the wild chase upon which thou and thy boy comrades were bent.  Well was it for all that our trusty huntsmen were with you, else might England be mourning sore this day for a life cut off ere it had seen its first youthful prime.  Yet, boy, I have not heart to chide thee; all I ask is that when thou art bent on some quest of glory or peril another time, thou wilt tell thy father first.  Trust him not to say thee nay; it is his wish that thou shouldst prove a worthy scion of thy house.  He will never stand in thy path if thy purpose be right and wise.”

The Prince accepted this paternal admonition with all becoming grace and humility, and bent his knee before his mother, to be raised and warmly embraced both by her and the little princesses, who had come in all haste to the Palace of Guildford before the good Rector had had time to send a message of warning to the King.  Queen Philippa had heard from her daughters of the proposed escapade on the part of the little band surrounding the Prince, and the fear lest the bold boy might expose himself to real peril had induced the royal family to hasten to Guildford only two days after the Prince had gone thither.  They had met a messenger from Master Bernard as they had neared the Palace, and the King, after assuring himself of the safety of his son, made kindly inquiries after those of his companions who had been with him on his somewhat foolhardy adventure.