Still we came there somehow, and, forgetting my wounds, I tumbled from the horse, threw myself flat and drank and drank, more, I think, than ever I did before.  Not in all my life have I tasted anything so delicious as was that long draught of water.  When I had satisfied my thirst, I dipped my head and made shift to jerk my wounded arm into it, for its coolness seemed to still the pain.  Presently Leo rose, the water running from his face and beard, and said—­“What shall we do now?  The river seems to be wide, over a hundred yards, and it is low, but there may be deep water in the middle.  Shall we try to cross, in which case we might drown, or stop where we are till daylight and take our chance of the death-hounds?”

“I can’t go another foot,” I murmured faintly, “much less try to ford an unknown river.”

Now, about thirty yards from the shore was an island covered with reeds and grasses.

“Perhaps we could reach that,” he said.  “Come, get on to my back, and we will try.”

I obeyed with difficulty, and we set out, he feeling his way with the handle of the spear.  The water proved to be quite shallow; indeed, it never came much above his knees, so that we reached the island without trouble.  Here Leo laid me down on the soft rushes, and, returning to the mainland, brought over the black horse and the remaining weapons, and having unsaddled the beast, knee-haltered and turned it loose, whereon it immediately lay down, for it was too spent to feed.

Then he set to work to doctor my wounds.  Well it proved for me that the sleeve of my garment was so thick, for even through it the flesh of my forearm was torn to ribbons, moreover a bone seemed to be broken.  Leo collected a double handful of some soft wet moss and, having washed the arm, wrapped it round with a handkerchief, over which he laid the moss.  Then with a second handkerchief and some strips of linen torn from our undergarments he fastened a couple of split reeds to serve as rough splints to the wounded limb.  While he was doing this I suppose that I slept or swooned.  At any rate, I remember no more.

Sometime during that night Leo had a strange dream, of which he told me the next morning.  I suppose that it must have been a dream as certainly I saw or was aware of nothing.  Well, he dreamed—­I use his own words as nearly as possible—­that again he heard those accursed death-hounds in full cry.  Nearer and nearer they came, following our spoor to the edge of the river—­all the pack that had run down the horses.  At the water’s brink they halted and were mute.  Then suddenly a puff of wind brought the scent of us upon the island to one of them which lifted up its head and uttered a single bay.  The rest clustered about it, and all at once they made a dash at the water.

Leo could see and hear everything.  He felt that after all our doom was now at hand, and yet, held in the grip of nightmare, if nightmare it were, he was quite unable to stir or even to cry out to wake and warn me.