I thanked him warmly, without regarding his kindly statement that my conduct on the previous day had laid him under lasting obligations to me. We went down together, and he transferred two of his fellows to me there and then, bidding them change their horses for fresh ones and meet me at the south gate. He sent also a man to my stable--Simon Fleix having disappeared in the confusion--for the Cid, and was in the act of inquiring whether I needed anything else, when a woman slipped through the knot of horsemen who surrounded us as we stood in the doorway of the house, and, throwing herself upon me, grasped me by the arm. It was Fanchette. Her harsh features were distorted with grief, her cheeks were mottled with the violent weeping in which such persons vent their sorrow. Her hair hung in long wisps on her neck. Her dress was torn and draggled, and there was a great bruise over her eye. She had the air of one frantic with despair and misery. She caught me by the cloak, and shook me so that I staggered. ‘I have found you at last!’ she cried joyfully. ‘You will take me with you! You will take me to her!’ Though her words tried my composure, and my heart went out to her, I strove to answer her according to the sense of the matter. ‘It is impossible, I said sternly. ‘This is a man’s errand. We shall have to ride day and night, my good woman.’ ‘But I will ride day and night too!’ she replied passionately, flinging the hair from her eyes, and looking wildly from me to M. Rambouillet. ‘What would I not do for her? I am as strong as a man, and stronger. Take me, take me, I say, and when I meet that villain I will tear him limb for limb!’ I shuddered, listening to her; but remembering that, being country bred, she was really as strong as she said, and that likely enough some advantage might accrue to us from her perfect fidelity and devotion to her mistress, I gave a reluctant consent. I sent one of M. de Rambouillet’s men to the stable where the deaf man’s bay was standing, bidding him pay whatever was due to the dealer, and bring the horse to the south gate; my intention being to mount one of my men on it, and furnish the woman with a less tricky steed.