“He c’n ride, cain’t he? Wha’s to hindeh him?”
“Quite right. He shall ride inside the coach. Go and see if I can do anything for him.”
Aunt Fanny returned in a few minutes.
“He says yo’ll do him a great favoh if yo’ jes’ go to baid. He sends his ‘spects an’ hopes yo’ slumbeh won’ be distubbed ag’in.”
“He’s a perfect brute!” exclaimed Beverly, but she went over and crawled under the blankets and among the cushions the wounded man had scorned.
CHAPTER VII
SOME FACTS AND FANCIES
There was a soft, warm, yellow glow to the world when Beverly Calhoun next looked upon it. The sun from his throne in the mountain tops was smiling down upon the valley the night had ravaged while he was on the other side of the earth. The leaves of the trees were a softer green, the white of the rocks and the yellow of the road were of a gentler tint; the brown and green reeds were proudly erect once more.
The stirring of the mountain men had awakened Aunt Fanny, and she in turn called her mistress from the surprisingly peaceful slumber into which perfect health had sent her not so many hours before. At the entrance to the improvised bedchamber stood buckets of water from the spring.
“We have very thoughtful chambermaids,” remarked Beverly while Aunt Fanny was putting her hair into presentable shape. “And an energetic cook,” she added as the odor of broiled meat came to her nostrils.
“Ah cain’ see nothin’ o’ dat beastes, Miss Beverly—an’—Ah—Ah got mah suspicions,” said Aunt Fanny, with sepulchral despair in her voice.
“They’ve thrown the awful thing into the river,” concluded Beverly.
“Dey’s cookin’ hit!” said Aunt Fanny solemnly.
“Good heaven, no!” cried Beverly. “Go and see, this minute. I wouldn’t eat that catlike thing for the whole world.” Aunt Fanny came back a few minutes later with the assurance that they were roasting goat meat. The skin of the midnight visitor was stretched upon the ground not far away.
“And how is he?” asked Beverly, jamming a hat pin through a helpless bunch of violets.
“He’s ve’y ‘spectably skun, yo’ highness.”
“I don’t mean the animal, stupid.”
“Yo’ mean ’at Misteh Goat man? He’s settin’ up an’ chattin’ as if nothin’ happened. He says to me ’at we staht on ouah way jes’ as soon as yo’ all eats yo’ b’eakfus’. De bosses is hitched up an’—”
“Has everybody else eaten? Am I the only one that hasn’t?” cried Beverly.
“’Ceptin’ me, yo’ highness. Ah’m as hungry as a poah man’s dawg, an’—”
“And he is being kept from the hospital because I am a lazy, good-for-nothing little—Come on, Aunt Fanny; we haven’t a minute to spare. If he looks very ill, we do without breakfast.”
But Baldos was the most cheerful man in the party. He was sitting with his back against a tree, his right arm in a sling of woven reeds, his black patch set upon the proper eye.
“You will pardon me for not rising,” he said cheerily, “but, your highness, I am much too awkward this morning to act as befitting a courtier in the presence of his sovereign. You have slept well?”
“Too well, I fear. So well, in fact, that you have suffered for it. Can’t we start at once?” She was debating within herself whether it would be quite good form to shake hands with the reclining hero. In the glare of the broad daylight he and his followers looked more ragged and famished than before, but they also appeared more picturesquely romantic.
“When you have eaten of our humble fare, your highness,—the last meal at the Hawk and Raven.”
“But I’m not a bit hungry.”
“It is very considerate of you, but equally unreasonable. You must eat before we start.”
“I can’t bear the thought of your suffering when we should be hurrying to a hospital and competent surgeons.” He laughed gaily. “Oh, you needn’t laugh. I know it hurts. You say we cannot reach Ganlook before tomorrow? Well, we can’t stop here a minute longer than we—Oh, thank you!” A ragged servitor had placed a rude bowl of meat and some fruit before her.
“Sit down here, your highness, and prepare yourself for a long fast. We may go until nightfall without food. The game is scarce and we dare not venture far into the hills.”
Beverly sat at his feet and daintily began the operation of picking a bone with her pretty fingers teeth. “I am sorry we have no knives and forks” he apologized.
“I don’t mind”’ said she. “I wish you would remove that black patch.”
“Alas, I must resume the hated disguise. A chance enemy might recognize me.”
“Your—your clothes have been mended,” she remarked with a furtive glance at his long legs. The trousers had been rudely sewed up and no bandages were visible. “Are you—your legs terribly hurt???”
“They are badly scratched, but not seriously. The bandages are skilfully placed,” he added, seeing her look of doubt. “Ravone is a genius.”
“Well, I’ll hurry,” she said, blushing deeply. Goat-hunter though he was and she a princess, his eyes gleamed with the joy of her beauty and his heart thumped with a most unruly admiration. “You were very, very brave last night,” she said at last—and her rescuer smiled contentedly.
She was not long in finishing the rude but wholesome meal, and then announced her readiness to be on the way. With the authority of a genuine princess she commanded him to ride inside the coach, gave incomprehensible directions to the driver and to the escort, and would listen to none of his protestations. When the clumsy vehicle was again in the highway and bumping over the ridges of flint, the goat-hunter was beside his princess on the rear seat, his feet upon the opposite cushions near Aunt Fanny, a well-arranged bridge of boxes and bags providing support for his long legs.
“We want to go to a hospital,” Beverly had said to the driver, very much as she might have spoken had she been in Washington. She was standing bravely beside the forewheel, her face flushed and eager. Baldos, from his serene position on the cushions, watched her with kindling eyes. The grizzled driver grinned and shook his head despairingly. “Oh, pshaw! You don’t understand, do you? Hospital—h-o-s-p-i-t-a-l,” she spelt it out for him, and still he shook his head. Others in the motley retinue were smiling broadly.
“Speak to him in your own language, your highness, and he will be sure to understand,” ventured the patient.
“I am speaking in my—I mean, I prefer to speak in English. Please tell him to go to a hospital,” she said confusedly. Baldos gave a few jovial instructions, and then the raggedest courtier of them all handed Beverly into the carriage with a grace that amazed her.
“You are the most remarkable goat-hunters I have ever seen,” she remarked in sincere wonder.
“And you speak the most perfect English I’ve ever heard,” he replied.
“Oh, do you really think so? Miss Grimes used to say I was hopeless. You know I had a—a tutor,” she hastily explained. “Don’t you think it strange we’ve met no Axphain soldiers?” she went on, changing the subject abruptly.
“We are not yet out of the woods,” he said.
“That was a purely American aphorism,” she cried, looking at him intently. “Where did you learn all your English?”
“I had a tutor,” he answered easily.
“You