Trying to hold them back, she stretched a feeble hand toward the trees; and it
seemed to her that they did not glide past quite so rapidly. And the green
river that had been rushing toward her, that passed under her more slowly too.
Sometimes she could even make out violets amid the waves. But the waves were
rising strangely, she thought,--rising, rising--
At last, she felt their cool touch upon her fore-head. They had risen and
stopped her. Somewhere, there was the soft thud of a falling body; then the
cool greenness closed around her and held her tenderly, a crumpled leaf that
the whirlwind had dropped from its sport.
Chapter VIII
Taken Captive
No one turns from good,
if it can be got.
Ha'vama'l.
Lying drowned in cool silence, the girl came slowly to a consciousness that
someone was stooping over her. Raising her heavy lids, eyes rested on a man's
face, showing dimly in the dusk of the starlight.
He said in English, "Canute's page, by the Saints!"
A chorus of voices answered him: "The fiend's brat that pierced your
shoulder?"--"Choke him!"--" Better he die now than after he has waxed large on
English blood."--" Finish him!"
Opening her eyes wider, she found that heads and shoulders made a black hedge
around her.
The victim of her blade straightened, shaking his shaggy mane.
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