VII
_He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree._
--SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
How long my body was the sport of that foaming water I cannot tell.
But when I again opened my eyes, I found, first, that the sun was
shining dazzling clear high above me, and, next, that the delightful
noise of running water babbled close against my ear. I lay upon a
strip of warm sward by the river's brink. Near by me grew some
rank-smelling waterside plant, and overhead the air seemed peopled
with larks.
I crawled, confused and aching, to the water, and dipped my head and
hands into the cold rills. This soon refreshed me, for the sun had, it
would seem, long been dwelling on that passive corse of mine by the
waterside and had parched it to the skin.
But it was some little while yet before my mind returned fully to
what had passed, and so to my loss.
I sat looking at the grey, noisy water, almost incredulous that
Rosinante could be gone. It might be that the same hand as must have
drawn myself from drowning had snatched her bridle also out of Fate's
grasp.
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