“Not all dead?” I cried.

“I do not know,” she answered, with a sob.  “I have not dared go near them.  They frighten me.  Mother of Heaven, what a night of horror it has been!  Oh, that I had taken your advice, Messer Boccacloro!” she exclaimed in a passion of self-reproach.

I laughed, seeking to soften her distress.

“To me it seems, that whether you would or not, you have been compelled to take it, after all.  Those fellows lie there harmless enough, and I am still—­as I urged that I should be—­your only escort.”

“A nobler protector never woman had,” she assured me, and I felt a hot pearl of moisture fail upon my brow.

“You were wise, at least, to journey with a Fool,” I answered her.  “For fools are proverbially lucky folk, and to-night has proven me of all fools the luckiest.  But, Madonna,” I suggested, in a different tone, “should we not be better advised to attempt to resume, this interesting journey of ours?  We do not seem to lack horses?”

A couple of nags were standing by the road-side, together with our mules, and I was afterwards to learn that she, herself, it was had tethered them.

“It must be yet some three leagues to Pesaro,” I added, “and if we journey slowly, as I fear me that we must, we should arrive there soon after daybreak.”

“Do you think that you can stand?” she asked, a hopeful ring in her voice.

“I might essay it,” answered I, and I would have done so, there and then, but that she detained me.

“First let me see to this hurt in your head,” said she.  “I have been bathing it with snow while you were unconscious.”

She gathered a fresh handful as she spoke, and, very tenderly she wiped away the blood.  Then from her own head she took the fine linen lanza that she wore, and made a bandage—­a bandage sweet with the faint fragrance of marsh-mallow—­and bound it about my battered skull.  When that was done she turned her attention to my shoulder.  This was a more difficult matter, and all that we could do was to attempt to stanch the blood, which already had drenched my doublet on that side.  To this end she passed a long scarf under my arm, and wound it several times about my shoulder.

At last her gentle ministrations ended, I sought to rise.  A dizziness assailed me scarce was I on my feet, and it is odds I had fallen back, but that she caught and steadied me.

“Mother in Heaven!  You are too weak to ride,” she exclaimed.  “You must not attempt it.”

“Nay, but I will,” I answered, with more stoutness of tone than I felt of body, and notwithstanding that my knees were loosening under my weight.  “It is a faintness that will pass.”

If ever man willed himself to conquer weakness, that did I then, and with some measure of success—­or else it was that my faintness passed of itself.  I drew away from her support, and straightening myself, I crossed to where the animals were tethered, staggering at first, but presently with a surer foot.  She followed me, watching my steps with as much apprehension as a mother may feel when her first-born makes his earliest attempts at walking, and as ready to spring to my aid did I show signs of stumbling.  But I kept up, and presently my senses seemed to clear, and I stepped out more surely.