"Nay, look! something cometh," she cried; and he looked and saw
a little boat making down the water toward the end anigh them.
Then the Knight of the Sun seemed to awake at her word,
and he leapt to his feet, and stood looking at the new comer.
It was but a little while ere the boat touched the shore, and a man
stepped out of it on to the grass and made it fast to the bank,
and then stood and looked about him as if seeking something; and lo,
it was a holy man, a hermit in the habit of the Blackfriars.
Then the Knight of the Sun hastened down to the strand to
meet him, and when Ralph was thus left alone with the Lady,
though it were but for a little, his heart beat and he longed
sore to touch her with his hand, but durst not, and did but
hope that her hand would stray his way as it had e'en now.
But she arose and stood a little way from him, and spake to him
sweetly of the fairness of the evening, and the wounded man,
and the good hap of the friar's coming before nightfall;
and his heart was wrung sore with the love of her.
So came the knight up from the strand, and the holy man with him,
who greeted Ralph and the Lady and blessed them, and said:
"Now, daughter, show me thy sick man; for I am somewhat of a leech,
and this thy baron would have me heal him, and I have a right
good will thereto."
So he went to the Black Knight, and when he had looked to his hurts,
he turned to them and said: "Have ye perchance any meat in the wilderness?"
"Yea," quoth the Knight of the Sun; "there is enough for a day or more,
and if we must needs abide here longer, I or this young man may well make
shift to slay some deer, great or little, for our sustenance and the healing
of my friend.
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