"The beautiful boy!" she sighed. "What have they done to him? I hope he is not dead. Tell me, you who are human and should understand your kind." Simon stooped closer over the body and examined it dexterously enough. In the rough-and-tumble of his life he had had plenty of experience of wounds, and knew what to do. The heart was beating satisfactorily, and Simon nodded approval. "Have you never seen death before?" he asked of his companion, while his big paws began to search more gently than seemed natural to them for the man's wounds. Argathona wrung her hands. "Never of human creature," she wailed; "but I still weep for the forest creatures, the beasts and the birds and the insects who seem so happy in their little lives." By this time Simon had plucked open the knight's coat, and his fingers travelled dexterously over flesh that seemed womanly white and smooth in the moonlight. "You are mighty compassionate," he grunted. Argathona gave him a glance of pathetic reproval. "I should be, being immortal," she answered, with a girlish dignity which was quaint in such a case. Simon nodded silently. He had forgotten the girl's claim to immortality, but he was now very sure that she was a witch and her words did not worry him. Patiently he finished his examination of the body. A stroke aimed at the side had slipped on a buckle, causing only a gash where a hole had been hoped for. The loss of blood was not enough to account for the knight's helpless condition. Simon lifted him carefully to one side and then saw the cause of unconsciousness. The murderous blow that had been struck at the back of the knight's head had been struck at close quarters, and struck to kill. It had come pretty near to carry out its purpose, if the striking arm had been stronger. Simon turned an encouraging countenance to the girl's grave face. "Your knightling is not dead nor in great danger of death, though he has a nasty nick in the side that had better be bunged." As he spoke he tore away a great piece of the youth's shirt and laid bare his side while he twisted the linen to shape a bandage. "The worst of his business is that crack at the back of the head which has knocked him silly. It were well if we had some water." "Let me do that," Argathona ordered, pointing to his employment. "I know how to stanch wounds. I saved the life of a stag lately that Alcibiades had wounded. Run you to the spring in the forest and bring me water." When Argathona commanded in Argathona's woodland, Simon felt that it was for him to obey without question. "Where is the spring?" he asked, as he rose to his feet. Argathona drew from her girdle the myrtle-bough that she had thrust there when they began their wild race through the forest. "Hold this so in your hand," she showed him, "and go straightly moonward, pressing it lightly between your palms. When it begins to quiver and twirl in your fingers you will know that you are near the spring. It is but a little way from here."